Coliseum of the Stars FINISHED
by Joshuabr
Summary: Chlark. Picks up where season four leaves off. Chloe and Lana get kidnaped by beings that arrived in the space ship that crashed at the end of season 4. Clark must rescue the girls by competing in a tournament that uses Chloe and Lana for prizes.
1. Chapter 1

Coliseum of the Stars

Spoilers: Season four

Disclaimer: Don't own. Wish I did. It would definitely be better if I did.

Rating: Pg-Pg13, mostly for non-graphic violence, i.e. Clark fighting the bad guys. No foul language as I don't use it myself.

Pairing: Chlark, but it doesn't come into it's own until the middle-end of the story.

Need to know: This picks up where season four leaves off. Yes, I have read the new spoilers and know this isn't how it goes, so you can consider it slightly AU. I had to write this anyway. Clark has used the stones to build the FOS (fortress of solitude). He learns to use all of his abilities. The occupants of the space ship, who look like a mix between a human and a rat, are actually alien slavers who have come to earth, using the meteor shower as a cover for taking a few humans without anyone realizing it. These slaves are to be used as prizes in gladiatorial games as prizes to be won. (Slaves are worth a lot of money. Duh.) Lana is immediately kidnapped as she is the first to be seen. Chloe is also found by them, walking around, dazed by the explosion in the caves. Running out of time and worried about being discovered, the aliens throw them both into the ship and launch back into space. This is where the story picks up.

Thanks to Maria and Ranae, my sisters, for their help and encouragement.

P.S.: this will be a long story, but I have it half way done already and just need to work out a few kinks so I should be posting once every day or two. This is my first story so feedback, constructive criticism, and suggestions are all very welcome and will help to make this story better. Oh, and it will switch view points fairly often.

Ch. 1

Chloe woke up with a splitting headache. She reached up and touched her forehead. When she felt something wet, she immediately pulled her hand back, both because of the wetness and because of the pain that she felt when her hand had touched what seemed to be a small wound on her forehead. When she looked at her hand she saw a spot of semi-congealed blood about the size of a dime on the palm of her hand.

"Crud," she thought, "Well, at least it's not too bad, considering most head wounds bleed considerably more than wounds on other parts of the body."

Chloe jumped up off of the floor she had been laying on, when, out of the corner of her eye, she saw movement. Looking closer at what had startled her, she saw Lana. Lana seemed to be waking up. Chloe watched as Lana raised herself into a sitting position, lifting her face from the cold floor to look around.

Lana shook her head to try and clear it of the multitude of cob webs that seem to have taken residence in the skull and immediately regretted it as the ache in her head, neck and back tripled. After the pain subsided, Lana looked around, trying to get an idea of where she was and what was going on. Her eyes settled on Chloe, who appeared to be watching her with equal interest.

"Chloe?" asked Lana, not sure if it was really Chloe after what happened to her today.

"Lana?" replied Chloe in an equally skeptical voice.

"Where are we?" asked Lana, taking a good look around the room for the first time since she woke up.

"What makes you think I know where we are?" replied Chloe.

"Maybe because you were awake when I woke up?"

"I only woke about a minute before you did. I have no idea of where we are. The last thing I remember is being dragged down to the caves by Lex and then there was some kind of an explosion, and then I woke up here." Chloe explained, deliberately leaving out the part where she saw Clark in the caves, surrounded by a white light, and then, after grabbing something, disappeared right before the explosion.

"What about you, Lana? Do you remember anything that might give us a clue as to where we are? What's the last thing you remember?" Chloe asked, switching into investigative reporter mode.

Lana looked down and awkwardly shifted her leaning position into a sitting position while favoring her wounded leg slightly. Looking around the room to collect her thoughts she took her time in replying.

"The last thing I remember is being in the helicopter Lex put me on to get me out of Smallville. All the sudden, meteors started falling around us. The pilot took evasive action, but one of the meteors hit the helicopter and sent it spinning to the ground. When I woke up, the pilot was dead. I crawled away from the crash site, which took me towards one of the meteor craters. Curiosity getting the better of me I stumbled to the top of the crater and looked inside." Lana paused at this point, trying to decide where or not to continue with her story, as she was having a hard time believing that the rest of the story actually happened.

TBC.


	2. Chapter 2

Deciding to continue, Lana looked Chloe directly in the eye and tried to relate the bizarre events that she had witnessed.

"I … looked over the crest of the crater and saw … something that wasn't a meteor. It was large, and it formed a kind of triangle or diamond shape. It was a deep black. Its surface was smooth, like glass, and it was clearly artificial. It was also clear that it wasn't a satellite or an advanced airplane. I … I think it was a spaceship," Lana said in an amazed tone of voice, "I saw it open and a bright light came out of the opening, but before I could see anything else, I fainted and then I woke up here."

Chloe's eyes widened as she listened to Lana describe what she had seen after she crashed.

"Lana, are you sure that you didn't dream this or hallucinate it because of your head injury?"

"No, I'm not sure, but you asked what I remember and I told you. In other circumstances I would have simply dismissed it as a dream or a hallucination, but under the current circumstances, I think it might be a good idea to keep what I saw in mind."

"So you're telling me you think we were abducted by aliens?"

"I never said that, I just think we shouldn't dismiss the possibility out of hand. I mean, look around, this room isn't like anything I've seen before."

Chloe looked around the small room, which was about 10 feet by 10 feet by 8 feet, and saw that Lana was right. The room was completely bare, no windows, and the walls were made of a material that she had never seen before. The only color in the room was what they were wearing. The rest of the room was white. These things were cause for concern, but were not necessarily indicators of alien abduction. What was really concerning was that there was no obvious source of light and yet the room was brightly lit.

"The lights." Chloe stated.

"What about them?" asked Lana, genuinely puzzled at her friend's statement.

"There aren't any." stated Chloe, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

Looking around Lana said "Your right, but I was referring to the décor, and the very obvious lack or a door, window, or any other visible means of entrance or exit."

"Oh, O.K., that too. So we are in a room that has no lights and yet we can see and has no entrance and yet here we are. Alright, I'm convinced. I'll keep an open mind. What we have to do now is decide what to do."

"There IS NOTHING to do; we're in a room with no exit, with no tools, and no knowledge of where we are or who is keeping us here." Lana exclaimed vehemently.

Chloe smiled and then laughed, "I know we can't get out of here on our own, at least not right now. What I meant is how are we going to keep ourselves occupied while we're in here."

Thirty minutes later…

"…And so Pete decided to get Clark back. The next day, while Clark's attention was on mooning over you, Pete dumped a bottle of hot sauce into Clark's coke. We could barely keep a strait face when he took a big swallow of his coke. But all he did was say that 'this coke tastes a little funny'" Chloe said, doing her best Clark impression, "and then proceeded to drink most of it. I will never forget the look on Pete's face when Clark did that." Chloe said, laughing so hard tears were streaming down her face.

"It's a funny story Chloe, but it's not THAT funny." Lana stated.

"You haven't heard the best part of the story yet. Later, just after Clark left, Pete said he didn't understand what went wrong. I told him he should have used a stronger hot sauce. He replied that he had used his family's secret hot sauce. This of course meant nothing to me until he explained about the hot sauce competition held that year at the fair. That year Pete's family had entered a new recipe into the contest. The contest judge, who could literally drink most hot sauces as if they were glasses of lemonade, placed one drop of the Ross Hot Sauce on his tongue and ran off the stage in tears." Chloe took a break to wipe her eyes with her shirt sleeve.

"After Pete told me this, I said he must not have out enough into the glass and the Coke must have diluted it. He said he put in at least a tablespoon, enough to bring anyone to their knees. So I suggested that maybe Clark had known what was going on and had somehow switched glasses when we weren't looking. Pete, of course, immediately looked relived and decided I was right. He also decided to prove it. So, before he could think better of it, he grabbed the glass and took a big gulp of Clark's drink. I had never seen Pete cry before, but as he swallowed he got the strangest look on his face. His eyes began to tear up and he started to cough. Tears began to pour down Pete's face as the hot sauce began to take effect. The best part about this is Clark forgot his school notebook and came back for it. He walked in to see Pete in tears, gulping his own coke, trying to put out the fire. Of course, Clark being Clark, he assumes that Pete is choking and is trying to dislodge the food with the coke. So of course, Clark grabs the coke from Pete and starts the Heimlich maneuver on Pete. Poor Pete was desperately trying to get his coke back but couldn't talk yet. So here I am, nearly rolling on the floor, I was laughing so hard, while Clark is performing the Heimlich maneuver on an unwilling Pete who was desperately trying to get Clark to stop so that he could finish his drink. It took me about three minutes to calm down enough to be able to explain to Clark what was happening. It took Pete three days to get the taste out of his mouth. Clark has never let him forget it either. To this day, if Pete ever asks Clark to get him a coke, Clark will ask if he wants hot sauce with that." Chloe finished with a huge grin.

By this time Lana was laughing so hard she snorted. "I … I can't … Hahahaa, I can't believe that Pete did that! How did Clark switch the glass and then switch it back?" she said while still laughing.

Chloe's smile dimmed a little at this statement, thinking that Clark probably hadn't had any idea of what was happening and had indeed drank the coke without it having any effect on him. This had happened to her a lot lately, old memories of Clark and his strange behavior suddenly making sense. "He never said. He always said he never did anything, that we had done it all for him."

As she finished speaking they both heard a whoosh and saw the outline of a door that hadn't been there a minute ago. As the door slid into the ceiling their eyes widened as they saw…

TBC.


	3. Chapter 3

Ch. 2

Deep in the Antarctic, Clark stepped out of a chamber build into the face of a crystalline cliff that was inside of a huge cavern made of the same crystalline material.

Seemingly out of thin air burst a voice, "My son, you have finally united the elements and fulfilled the first part of your destiny. You now have access to all of your abilities and to some of the more … important information hidden within the stones. I will now send you back to the caves, allowing you to deal with the events that have transpired during your absence. There is a condition to this. You must return to this 'fortress of solitude' that you have built and learn more about both your destiny, and about your Kryptonian heritage. You cannot put it off for too long a time like you did with the elements. Remember, Kal-el, there are consequences not only to your actions, but also to your inactions. Next time the consequences will be even worse. You must return here within a year. No later. If you do not agree to this deal I will have no choice but to keep you here until you learn enough to guarantee your safety. This will take several months and will result in much suffering for those you care about."

"What events are you talking about and what do you mean the people I care about will suffer?" demanded Clark in a worried voice.

"For one, the house you have resided in for most of your life has been struck by a meteor, killing the one you call 'Jason Teague' and injuring your adoptive parents." Jor-el stated in a matter of fact tone of voice.

"How badly injured are they? Are they all right?" Clark demanded.

"They both sustained only flesh wounds and will be fine in a few of Earth's rotations (days). That however, is not were your concern should be directed. The true problem lies in a much different direction. The second meteor shower was used as a diversion by a group of 'aliens' to cover the kidnapping of humans to be used as slaves. These aliens have taken two of your friends, the ones you call Chloe and Lana. They have just arrived at the aliens 'mother ship'. If you agree to come back and continue to learn than I will tell you of a potential way to rescue them, and I will even assist you in doing so. Do you agree to this proposal, Kal-el?"

Clark didn't see much of a choice in the matter. Either he did as his Father asked or he could lose Chloe and Lana forever. But before he said yes, he had another question that e wanted answered.

"How long will it take to learn what I need to know?"

"That depends. It can be done all at once or in smaller increments, depending on how early you start. If you started coming twice a month, it would only take about a day each visit, but if you wait until the end of the year it will take almost a month."

"Then you have a deal. Now, help me rescue my friends"

As a guarantee that Clark would keep his word, Jor-el once again placed the symbol for the house of El on Clark's chest. Not only would it force him to come to the fortress when the year was up, it would allow Jor-el to talk to Clark telepathically when there was a need to do so. He then outlined his plan to his son, telling him how he could retrieve his soul mate from her abductors. Of course, he neglected to tell Kal-el the soul mate part. If he had learned one thing about his son, it was that he would brook no interference in his personal life from him. His son would never accept the truth about his soul mate from him. Kal-el would simply have to discover the truth for himself. It was actually amazing how similar they were in that way. He had had to find out the hard way that Louise wasn't his soul mate, for all he had cared for her. Instead it was exactly who his father had always known it would be, Lara, his childhood companion and friend, the one who had patently waited for him for so many years.

TBC.


	4. Chapter 4

Ch. 3

…Their eyes widened as they saw what appeared to be a combination between a human and a rat emerge from the doorway. About five and a half feet tall, relatively skinny, with short fur covering most of the creature's body, and fingers that were tipped with claws. While his body structure was more man in appearance, his face was almost all rat. His small, almost nonexistent ears, coupled with a large jaw and nose that extended from his face in a way that made him look exactly like a rat.

Showing small, razor sharp teeth, the creature uttered what Chloe thought might be its language.

"Ithir filsith Ish-nith!" said the ugly creature as if it was trying to give an order.

"Sith Ish-nith sidar," came a voice from the creature's belt, "Translation from Ish-nith to standard Human English complete. Please proceed to speak."

"You will follow me!" demanded the rat/man in a voice that had a slightly mechanical overtone. Chloe immediately thought of the universal translator from old Star Trek episodes.

"You will remain silent at all times. Anything you say will be heard by the device on my belt and translated into my language as mine is being translated into yours, and then you will be punished accordingly. You will only speak when spoken to directly. You will answer immediately, truthfully, and with the proper respect or you will be punished. Do you understand?"

"Who are you and what are we doing here? Why are you holding us prisoner?" demanded Chloe.

The rat/man sighed and gave them a pitying look. "It looks like I've got a couple of slow ones here. Very well, perhaps a demonstration will help you to learn a bit faster." With that he reached down and pressed a button on his belt.

Chloe screamed and fell to the ground as what felt like a huge jolt of electricity coursed through her body.

"Chloe!" shouted Lana as she watched her best friend writhe on the ground.

The rat/man slowly shook his head and then pressed another button on his belt located beside the first. Immediately, Lana joined Chloe on the floor.

"I hope that you have learned a lesson just now," the rat/man shouted over the sounds of agony that surrounded him. Continuing to shake his head, he pushed first one, and then the other button on his belt. Relief from the pain immediately flowed through Chloe, and then through Lana, but both were still shaking from the immense pain that had almost pushed their bodies to the breaking point. It took a while before they could hear what the rat/man was saying.

"I hope that you both have learned a lesson. Any form of disobedience will be punished immediately and severely. I will say this only once, so pay attention. You have been taken from your home planet by the Ish-nith Conglomerate, a space faring race that controls much of the trade in vices throughout this galaxy. You have been taken to serve as prizes for the victor in our gladiatorial games. You will serve as the slave of whoever happens to win you. It is my job to give you a crash course in how to be a slave and survive long enough to be of some use. If you do as I say, and life will be much easier for you. Continue to resist, and your punishments will worsen. Continue your resistance past a certain point, and you will be killed as an example to others. To help you along your path to submission, I have ordered a window to be formed for a moment so that you can see exactly where you are."

With that, a section of the wall behind Chloe and Lana became transparent. Looking outside, Chloe saw a sight that would be forever burned into her mind. She was looking down on Earth from orbit. Chloe heard a gasp come from Lana as she too realized what this meant. There was no way to get home. Not right now, and probably not in the future. They were stuck here and they needed to do whatever it took to survive.

"Oh, and just in case you think someone will come for you, the authorities on your planet will simply assume that you were killed in the meteor shower. There will be no rescue, and escape is impossible. There is no way for you to return, so the faster you learn to obey, the longer you will live and the easier your life will be. Now do you understand?"

Looking at each other, they simultaneously decided to go along with him, at least for now.

"Yes." They both said reluctantly.

"Very good. Perhaps you aren't so slow after all. Your second lesson is this; always walk exactly three feet behind your owner unless otherwise told or unless you are performing your duties. You will practice this by following me off of this shuttle and to your new quarters, after a stop at the training grounds of course. There we will continue your training."

Ch.4

Clark flew. Not in an airplane or a helicopter. He had no wires or guides holding him up. He didn't even have a jet pack. He was flying under his own steam, using sheer willpower in conjunction with his unique physiology to propel himself at fantastic speeds through the air. The boy who had once been afraid of heights has become a man who loves them. If he wasn't so worried about his friends he would have tried to perform a few aerobatic tricks to test the limits of what he could do. However, after everything he had heard from Jor-el, he was more than just concerned about their wellbeing. He was afraid. Afraid for them and their wellbeing and afraid of how they would react when they found out everything about him. And it was inevitable now. There was no way they wouldn't find out. But above all of that, he was afraid that he would fail them, that he wouldn't be able to pull off the scheme, the performance that Jor-el had concocted.

It was a daring plan. A frontal assault on the ship would not work. Not that he couldn't beat its defenses, he could. The problem was more complicated that that. The Ish-nith had a policy of killing any slaves or hostages if a rescue was attempted. While he could destroy the ship if he wanted to, gaining entrance without causing enough damage to possibly kill Chloe or Lana would simply take too long. By the time he disabled the defenses, gained entrance, and then found them, it would almost certainly be too late. They would be dead by the time he arrived. So, Jor-el suggested a more subtle and devious approach to rescuing them.

"Kal-el," Jor-el said telepathically, interrupting Clark's thoughts, "You are now directly under the ship. Fly straight up. Once you exit the Earth's atmosphere you should be able to detect the ship's presence. Its cloak is imperfect, as it is very costly for them to run it at full strength. While it is set high enough to ensure that it cannot be detected by Earth, if you get close enough to it you should be able to detect it with your enhanced senses."

"Are you positive that I can travel through space safely?" Clark asked, still a little apprehensive about that part of the rescue.

"The nothingness of space will not harm you, and you can hold your breath long enough to get on board the ship." Jor-el said reassuringly.

"I see it!" Clark said a few minutes later. The ship was huge. Clark could barely guess its size. It had to be at least ten miles long and wide, and at least four miles high. It was shaped like a very thick disk and had a clear dome on the top of the ship, which was facing towards the sun so that sunlight would illuminate whatever was under the dome.

"My son, you should see an opening in the side of the ship. Small ships should be going in and out of that opening. Fly under one of the approaching ships. It will mask your approach from their sensors. Once the ship lands, head for the Gaming Office. You know what to do from then on."

Seir Ralid was bored. No, not just bored, he was bored out of his tiny, tiny mind. He was so bored his whiskers hurt. It was his job to insure that all of the applicants for the Games met a certain criteria. The problem with this was you needed applicants to test; otherwise you twiddled your thumbs and did nothing, in short making this job very boring if business was slow. Not that it wasn't important, because it was. If a contestant wasn't up to a certain standard the fight would be to lopsided and it would be over very quickly. That would bore the audience, and that was very bad. The better rating each fight got, the more the advertisers back home would pay to advertise on their network. A bad fight literally meant millions of credits right out the space dock. Not to mention the potential loss of advertisers. The Galactivision advertisers were a fickle lot and had to be humored and pampered. So, here he was, behind a desk, waiting for another applicant to try to qualify.

Seir was prepared to continue his sulking when he saw the door to his facility open and in walk a tall humanoid, dressed in an almost skin tight outfit. The outfit was all white, except for a symbol on the chest which was black. Seir immediately arrived at the impression that this person could handle himself well in combat, but it was better to be safe than sorry, and he had been wrong before. He had learned the hard way that appearances were deceiving.

"Hello, and welcome to the Gladiatorial Gaming Office, I am Seir, your Tester. To insure that you can fight well enough to survive for a few minutes, we have a battery of tests that you must pass, but first you must fill out these forms and answer a few questions while you do so." He said, motioning the humanoid towards the chair on the other side of his desk.

"First question, what race are you?"

"Kryptonian."

Seir's eyes popped open. He was no longer bored. In fact, he couldn't remember the last time he was so excited. The Kryptonians NEVER participated in the games. In fact, they never participated in anything with the other races. He couldn't remember the last time he, or anyone else for that mater, had seen a Kryptonian. Not that that was surprising. The Kryptonians were a highly advanced race, but they were also very xenophobic. They disliked outside influences so much that they didn't even keep embassies on other planets. It wasn't unusual to go ten or twenty years without anyone seeing one, but everyone paid attention when you did get a message from them. The last race stupid enough to attack them, the Icthrop, were punished by the Kryptonians severely. Not that they ever claimed to have done it, but everyone knew that they had. The Icthrop sent almost every ship they had toward Krypton, none of which were ever heard form again. Two weeks later their home planet was destroyed. After that, no one even tried to violate Kryptonian space. This was monumental. Even if he wasn't a good fighter, he would probably be allowed to fight; simply because of the attention having a Kryptonian fight at all would be huge. But that wasn't his decision. Reaching under his desk, Seir pressed a button that would summon The Owner. He would handle this. All Seir had to do was keep the Kryptonian occupied until he got here.

The Owner, known at birth as Sidir Tisl, was at what very moment in his office with Sirit (their equivalent of coffee) dripping from his triple chins onto his extremely large shirt that barely covered his copious form. An alarm had just sounded, and while it wasn't a 'we're under attack' kind of an alarm, it was enough to startle him into spilling Sirit all over himself.

"Servant! servant! Get in here and get me a new shirt! Move it! I have a code three alarm to tend to." He said as he took off his shirt and used the dry part to wipe off his shin and jowls. Normally, it would be unthinkable for him to do so himself, but with a code three alarm he decided that quickness and efficiency took precedence over comfort and custom.

"This had better be important," he growled as his servant arrived with a new shirt. The servant should be moving faster, much faster. After all, it was a code three alarm.

With that thought, Sidir cuffed the slave girl hard across the mouth, causing her to fall to the floor in a heap.

"Get up and move faster! I have to leave now!" said Sidir as he considered adding a kick in the ribs for good measure. He decided against it because it would simply take too much time for the slave to get up if he did so. He blatantly ignored the lavender blood that trickled down the girls pink skin from where one of his claws had caught on her skin. After all, she was just a slave, and therefore had no rights to any feelings of her own or to kindness from him, her owner.

Following the slave girl as she picked herself up and opened the door to his office, he waited until she summoned his personal lift to give her the command, "Remind me to punish you more when this is over with. You should have moved much faster."

Knowing that if she did not she would be punished even worse if he ever remembered on his own; she nodded and climbed on board the lift and punched in the destination. Knowing that her owner would be impatient to leave the lift she moved toward the door as the lift decelerated. After opening the door, she waited until he left the lift to follow him, always exactly three feet behind him as was proper for a slave. She could hear her trainers words even now, "You will always walk exactly … "

TBC.


	5. Chapter 5

Ch. 5

"…Exactly three feet behind your owner as a sign of both submission and your inferiority. On the way here you both failed to maintain the correct distance several times, either getting too close, or falling too far behind. We will continue your training in this area now. In front of you are two holograms. You will follow these holograms until I am sure that you can do it correctly. Oh, and by the way, if you don't remember from our walk over here, if you fail to maintain the proper distance, you will be shocked by the computer that controls the holograms. I will return in thirty minutes to examine your progress."

With that, the rat/man, whose name Chloe had heard, but had been unable to pronounce, left to tend to unknown business. Fortunately for Chloe, and for Lana, they were expected to call him only Trainer, as to call him by his given name would be to imply that they were equals.

For the first time in six hours, Chloe and Lana finally had a chance to talk.

"How's you leg, Lana," Chloe asked as she carefully stayed three feet behind one of the holograms.

"It's not doing too well. If this keeps up it's going to start hurting a lot and it could become infected without medical treatment."

"He can't keep us going like this for much longer. No one can keep this up for much longer than this, at least, not after what we've been through." stated Chloe in what she hoped was a confident voice.

To be honest, she wasn't sure that that… thing was ever going to let them rest. He had pushed them as hard as they could go every second they had been with him, regardless of their injuries and their physical needs. She was sore, tired, thirsty, and hungry. She was also very worried about Lana. The injury to her leg wasn't all that bad by itself, but with all of the work that they had been doing, which didn't allow the wound to begin healing and also caused it to bleed a little, and the lack of food and water, the wound was sapping Lana's health and strength at an alarming rate. She also didn't seem to be doing very well emotionally. At first Lana seemed to be handling this situation as best as could be expected, but soon she began to wilt. As the hours passed by Lana's responses to orders became more and more robot like and the look in her eyes became more and more vacant, as if she wasn't even in her own body, but was someplace else. This, above everything else, worried Chloe. If Lana gave up in her head, it wouldn't be long before her body followed. Unfortunately, as Chloe continued to talk to her, trying her best to bolster Lana's flagging spirits, she could see that she wasn't reaching her. Nothing she could do was helping. After a while she ran out of things to say, and instead began to think. The Trainer had kept her so busy over the last six hours that she hadn't had any time to think. Now, as she was walking, she had plenty of time to think.

Chloe thought about escape and how hopeless it seemed, she thought about how they were going to survive in this new life of servitude, and she thought of Clark. Not just about him and the stones, or him and what had happened in the caves, but also about whether or not she would ever see him again. What did he think of her disappearance? Did he even know? Did he think she was dead? She didn't know. More than anything else, at that moment what Chloe wanted was to see Clark again, to be with him and to be able to talk to him, just about random stuff like they had so many times when they were younger. Would the Sharks win the Super Bowl? Debating over whether or not anyone who liked anchovies on their pizza need their heads examined, or if humans would ever colonize mars. Just random stuff, whatever they wanted to talk about. She missed that with him so much right now that she would have given almost anything just to be able to chat with him face to face for an hour. Little did she know that she would be seeing him again far sooner than she ever could have guessed.

Clark glanced over his shoulder as he heard someone enter the room. Looking back he saw a fat Ish-nith, and behind him, what many would consider to be an extremely beautiful Saru, a race that looked very human except for their pink skin and their lavender blood. Blood which he could see coursing down her face, running from a wound on her cheek. He knew instinctively that it must have been the fat Ish-nith that caused the injury. It was obvious that she was his slave by the manner in which she carried herself around him and by the look in her eyes whenever they strayed over to the Ish-nith.

Rage boiled up in Clark, not only for the disgusting way the woman was being treated, but also by the thought that Chloe and Lana could be on the receiving end of such treatment even now and there wasn't anything he could do to stop it. Not right now at least. It took a lot of self control for Clark not to let the rage he felt overwhelm him and coerce him into taking the weights that he was lifting and beat the corpulent rat into a bloody pulp with them. It took everything he had to turn around and face the overgrown rodent using his cover as a jaded Kryptonian out for a good time and a bit of entertainment. Jor-el's plan required that Clark cozy up to the owner so that he would be less suspicious of Clark.

"Hello, and what do we have here?" asked the Ish-nith, looking over Clark and clearly wondering why he was summoned to see what seemed to be a very average humanoid fighter.

"Owner, I have just finished testing this Kryptonian and he has passed all of the tests and is ready to fight as far as I can tell." stated Seir, in a deferential but clearly excited voice as he moved between the Owner and the seated Kryptonian.

It was easy to see The Owner's reaction. His eyes and his mouth swung open, if only for a brief second before he pulled himself together. In that brief instant, Clark could see every though that ran though the Ish-nith's mind. Every thought that the rodent had was centered on the incredible fortune he was about to make if he could insure that this Kryptonian would fight. Clark could virtually see the determination to make that happen written across his forehead.

Maybe this would be a little easier than he though, Clark mused.

"Well then, it is an honor to meet such a distinguished contestant such as yourself. If you would allow me to speak to my employee for but a moment I will personally show you the room in which you will be staying until the fight," The Owner stated, while grabbing a hold of the Seir's arm and nearly dragging him towards a door that lead into another room.

Clark decided he had better listen in to the conversation so that he could be better prepared if something went wrong.

"Are you sure he's a Kryptonian?"

"Positive. He passed through the spectral scanner when he crossed the room to attempt the first test. It showed him to be a Kryptonian."

"And he can fight?"

"He passed every test. In fact, he did better than most. If he performs in actual combat the way he did here, he stands a very good chance of winning this tournament."

Clark let out a small chuckle. They were buying it hook line and sinker. Even better, it seems that even though he had been holding back considerably during those tests, he had still placed near the top. If what he had done was near the top, than he shouldn't have any real trouble with the contest. What he heard next put a damper on his enthusiasm.

"Call up the PR department. Get them to order up a crash publicity campaign to get attention for the upcoming fight. Then call up the best fighters we have, current or retired, and get them here. I can see it now, 'The Best Fighter Ever Duke It Out.' Everyone will watch. Hurry while I give him a tour and then show him to his room. Oh, and by the time I'm done with the tour, I want everyone to know that whatever the Kryptonian wants, the Kryptonian gets. We have to keep him happy until the fight. Oh, and make sure that they get Kronus to come out of retirement."

"Understood, I'll get on it right away." Sier said before The Owner gave him anything else to do.

Clark listened as Seir left though a different entrance than the one he had just used to carry out his instructions. Very soon thereafter, The Owner walked back into the room.

Suddenly Clark wasn't so confident. Going up against a bunch of fellow contestants wouldn't be so bad, but going up against some of the best fighters in the galaxy was a different story. Could he defeat them?

Clark's thoughts were interrupted by The Owner.

"Thank you for waiting, I just needed to insure that your time here was as pleasant as possible. If you want, I could give you a tour of the ship and its facilities, beginning, of course, with the coliseum. It's very impressive and it might do you some good to look over where you will be competing."

"Quite right, I wouldn't mind a tour and I defiantly want to look over the coliseum," said Clark in the strange mix of personal friendliness and general superiority that was supposed to be his cover.

There were several reasons he had agreed to this tour. One was to get a better idea of the layout of the coliseum. Knowledge of the battlefield would give him a tactical advantage in combat. It might be a small one, but Clark wanted every advantage he could get. Another was to familiarize himself with the layout of the ship so that if he needed to escape with the girls, he could cut a few seconds off the time it would take to get out. But above all of that, what he really wanted, why he really agreed to the tour, was the chance to catch a glimpse of Chloe and Lana so that he could be sure that they were all right. Hopefully they wouldn't see him, as he didn't want them to see him being all chummy with this rodent, but he needed to be sure that they were all right, enough to overpower his concerns about that.

TBC


	6. Chapter 6

Ch. 6

Chloe was busy tending to Lana's leg as best she could. Their Trainer had finally shown them to their 'quarters' as he called their accommodations. Chloe had a different term for it. A cage. After Lana had collapsed three times the Trainer finally called it a day and had given them a little food, some water that was thankfully clean, and a few rags to use as bandages. They had also been given a foul smelling salve that was supposed to be applied to any open wounds they had. Chloe was about to start applying this to Lana's leg when the more human looking guards took the opportunity of their Trainer being gone to proposition them. After awhile Chloe had tried to shrug this off as the guards just talking trash, but Lana had apparently taken their comments to mean that they might rape them at any moment. In fact, Lana had retreated into a corner of the cell they shared and refused to leave it. She was there even now, as Chloe tried to finish bandaging her leg, always watching the guards just in case they tried something. To be honest, Chloe was frightened too, but one of them had to hold it together or neither of them would survive very long.

She had just finished with Lana's leg when she heard the door to their cell block open up. Looking up, more out of curiosity than anything else, she saw something that left her stunned.

"Oh my word." Chloe said involuntarily.

Clark. It was her Clark. Her heart soared for one incredible moment and then plunged the next. He was wearing a strange outfit, one that covered his whole body except for his hands and face. It was all white, with what looked like one of the symbols from the caves painted across the chest of the outfit in black. The symbol was a diamond with and eight in the center. Come to think of it, it was also on one of the stones. Not that any of that really mattered, but it did draw Chloe's attention to the fact that this Clark was acting strange. He was in the middle of yakking it up with one of the rat/men as if he didn't have a care in the world.

What was he doing? Why wasn't he rescuing them? How had he even known where they were? Even more importantly, how had he gotten here? Something wasn't right. She decided to listen to the conversation he was having with the rat/man as they drew nearer.

"And this is where we keep out prisoners, and more importantly, our new 'acquisitions'. I thought you might like to see the prizes for tomorrow's games," said the rat/man.

"I have to say that I am somewhat interested in seeing them. I would like to see whether or not they would make suitable prizes for the winner of the games tomorrow," said Clark in a disinterested tone of voice.

Lana looked up at the sound of Clark's voice. She and Chloe both listened with amazement and horror to what was said next.

"Neither slaves are very large or very strong, but they are both in good shape and are very beautiful. I doubt that the winner of the games tomorrow will have any problem at all finding something suitable for them to do," stated the rat/man as they reached the cage and gave both Chloe and Lana a leering glance.

"No, I don't think he will have any problem with that at all," stated Clark with an even bigger leer than the rat/man he was with, if that was even possible. "I don't think he will have any problem with that at all."

Chloe was stunned into silence. Clark, her Clark, was one of them. He didn't even look like he recognized her. Instead of rescuing them, he was pretending not to know them and was being, well, the word disgusting was the word that came to mind.

Hearing Clark say what he did was simply too much for Lana to take. She seemed to fold in on herself as she once again retreated to her corner of the cell. Chloe, however, both hearing what Clark had said and seeing its affect on Lana, got angry. Angry enough to forget the lessons she had so recently and painfully learned.

"I can't believe it. Why you cretin, you backstabbing, lying, no good…" Chloe continued to rain names at Clark until the rat/man pressed a button on the outside of the cell that sent a massive jolt of pain throughout Chloe's body.

"This slave seems to still have a bit of spirit left in her, but that's nothing a little time and effort can't cure," said the rat/man, looking slightly embarrassed by the outburst.

"Of course," Clark said. Suddenly Clark locked his eyes onto Chloe's and said in a slightly different tone of voice, "Time and patience can work wonders," and with that he turned away and once more looked at the rat/man. "Anyway, I've seen enough here. Why don't you show me to my room so that I can get prepared for tomorrow."

"Of course, of course, just follow me," the rat/man said as he started to walk out of the cell block.

Chloe stared on in utter disbelief as Clark left with the rat/man, her heart breaking. How was this possible? What was going on here?

Ch. 7

Clark was very glad at the moment that The Owner had asked him to follow him instead of walking side by side. He simply wasn't a good enough actor to keep from showing his rage. Not right now. When he saw how the Chloe and Lana were being treated the only thing that kept him from tearing the place apart with his bear hands was Jor-el telling him to calm down or he would get the girls killed. It had worked, but that didn't mean he was any calmer, just that he was more concerned about hiding that anger.

Of course, he had something else to think about now. How Lana had responded to the act he had put on for The Owner. She had simply crumbled. It was as if she had just given up and decided that it was all over now.

What was even worse than the way Lana had reacted was the way Chloe had reacted. He had been covertly watching her when she first spotted him. He had seen the sheer joy and love that had swept over her features when she first laid eyes upon him, only to see that look fade and shock, anger, and finally loathing take it's place as he continued his act.

Then there was what happened next. Chloe had let loose here temper at the very worst possible time and started to yell at him. As long as he lived, he would never forget seeing Chloe writhing around on the floor in pain. Just the thought of it brought about such afresh wave of sorrow and anger that he was forced to bury the memory or risk loosing control all together.

One thing was abundantly clear to Clark now. He wasn't going to let them suffer any more than they already had. He was going to use every available trick he could think of to coerce The Owner to allow them to stay the night with him until the fight tomorrow. It was about time he started making a few 'requests' anyway as a part of his cover. He began formulating a plan of attack as he followed The Owner to his room. Just outside the door, he turned and spoke to The Owner.

"Have those two slaves we just ran into brought to my room. I think they could use a small lesson in the way one talks to one's superiors, and I do enjoy teaching such lessons," demanded Clark in his best foppish tone of voice.

The request surprised The Owner. The Kryptonian knew that those two were the prizes for tomorrow's games and yet he wanted to see them tonight? It didn't make sense.

"I'm sorry but those two are to be used for the prizes in tomorrow's games."

"I know that, I just want to borrow them for the night and have a little fun with them."

Clark could see that this wasn't going over very well with the owner so he tried again. "Don't worry so much, I'll bring them back in one piece. Besides, if I win tomorrow, their mine anyways, and if I lose, well, I won't be able to tell anyone about it in the afterlife, now will I? Besides, even if someone found out, who would really care? Their slaves, so what if someone used them a little first?"

At this statement Clark could virtually hear the gears turning in the rodents little head, weighing the potential for trouble against the potential for profit if he could keep this spoiled Kryptonian brat happy.

"All right, you can have them for the night, but you have to keep them in your room at all times and you will have to return them in the morning before the games. You know, I wouldn't do this for just anyone," The owner replied in a conspiring tone of voice.

Changing his voice to match, Clark replied, "You don't have to worry about a thing, what I have planned for them will take all night and will require a great deal of privacy, so if you will insure that no one bothers us until morning, I would greatly appreciate it."

"Not a problem. I'll tell all of my staff that you are not to be disturbed after they arrive. Simply give me a moment and I'll have them brought right up. I do have a bit of business to attend to right now, but if you need anything just call me and I'll see that you get it."

"All right, but I doubt I'll need anything else. No doubt an important man such as yourself must have much to attend to. If I have any trouble I'll let you know."

"Well then, I'll see you tomorrow morning. Good luck with the fight, although I doubt you'll be needing any." With that he turned and walked away, leaving Clark with his thoughts of how he was going to explain this to Chloe and Lana.

TBC


	7. Chapter 7

Oh, by the way, I do want to change two things about the last few episodes. One, when Clark had amnesia, he set the lamp on fire after he looked at Chloe just after she adjusted her clothes after hearing about his x-ray vision, not when he looked at Lana. Two, Clark and Lana didn't say 'I love you' to each other just before the meteor shower hit. The rest of the conversation happened, they just never said 'I love you' to each other. Keep this in mind during the rest of the story. Thanks.

Ch. 8

Chloe was still trying to figure out what was going on when the guards came for them. The guards ordered them both to stand up and follow them. When Lana, still weak, took too long to stand up, one of the guards moved to strike her. Seeing what was about to happen, Chloe jumped in front of her friend, preventing the guard from hitting Lana. Instead of pushing Chloe aside, the guard turned his attention to her and, with a sneer, delivered a vicious backhand across her cheek that sent her spinning to the ground. After collecting himself the guard once more ordered them to stand up and follow him. Both of the girls moved as fast as they could, trying to avoid a repeat of what had just happened.

After walking what seemed like miles to the exhausted girls, the guard finally told Chloe and Lana to stand in front of a large door. The guard stepped to the side of the door and activated a comm. panel by pressing a black button twice.

"Kal-el, I have brought the slaves that you requested." said the guard into the comm. panel.

"Excellent, send them in and then leave." Came a commanding voice from the comm. unit.

"As you wish." The guard then pressed the black button again, ending the transmission, and then opened the door. Her roughly pushed both of the girls into the room and closed the door behind them, locking it to prevent them from leaving the room. Looking around, the girls spotted Clark. Lana seemed to shrink back from him, but Chloe had the opposite reaction.

Summoning all of the hurt, anger, and confusion of the last day Chloe balled her fist, stepped forward, and hit Clark as hard as she could. Or, at least, she tried to. About four inches from the side of his face Chloe's fist met with resistance.

Clark caught Chloe's fist as gently as he could. He knew she thought that he had betrayed them, and he didn't hold it against her. After all, he had put on a very convincing act, even if he did say so himself.

Still holding her hand, he felt her shift her weight and was able to read her intention to hit him with her left hand in time to stop her before she hurt herself. Taking his free right hand, he grasped her left wrist and, bending her arm carefully at the elbow, held her hand against the small of her back. He held her trapped like this, both her hands captured in his, almost embracing, for several minutes, the entire time staring into her eyes as she struggled against him, trying to break free. Finally the emotional high she had felt when she first walked into the room and saw Clark faded and then disappeared and all she was left with were feelings of hurt and betrayal.

When Clark saw the change in Chloe's demeanor he loosened his grip on her wrists and began to speak, hoping that she would listen to what he had to say and be understanding of the choices that he had made.

"Chloe, it's all right. I'm not going to hurt you. You're safe. I won't let them hurt you any more. You're safe here." Clark said as gently and reassuringly as he could. He knew that as weak, exhausted, and vulnerable as she was right now, both emotionally and physically, if he didn't handle this correctly if he didn't handle this correctly he could permanently hurt the woman he … cared for, and that was the last thing he wanted to do.

Letting go of Chloe, Clark looked her over and his eyes came to rest on the faint bruise in the shape of a hand left on her cheek by the guard, and for a second, Chloe could have sworn that his eyes turned red, but then he blinked and it was gone.

Continuing to look Chloe over, Clark saw how tired and worn out she was, and knew that she needed to rest and eat before they could continue this conversation. Oh, the conversation would take place, but it could be out off until she was feeling better. Besides, he reminded himself, Lana was there, and she was in even worse shape than Chloe.

Taking another step back and turning slightly, he addressed both girls at once.

"You both need to eat something and get some rest. Go to the table and I'll get you some food."

With that Clark turned and walked over to an alcove on the other side of the room. There he ordered up two hot meals and two mugs of something similar to hot chocolate, hoping it would help them to rest after their meal. Turing around while the synthesizer built into the wall worked on the order, he saw Chloe trying to coax Lana to the table. As he watched them, he reflected on how well Chloe was handling everything. In fact, she wasn't just handling herself well; she was also looking out for Lana's well being at the same time.

In a flash of insight, Clark could picture Chloe with her children. He could see how well she would do as a mother, and he also knew from observing her around children that she wouldn't agree. Perhaps her mother leaving her at such a young age had made her believe that she might do the same, or maybe always being treated like one of the guys had made her feel ill equipped to be a mother, but Clark could see that she would love her children with everything she had in her, and would protect them like a mother bear protecting her young.

Clark was drawn out of his thoughts by the beeping behind him that signaled that the food was ready. Turning back, he grasped the food tray and stepped over to the table, placing the tray in the center and then serving both girls their meal. While doing this he couldn't help but notice the way Lana was drawing back every time he came close to her. Her reaction hurt, but not as badly as he had expected. As he set her mug down, he noticed the bandage she wore on her leg when she moved away from him again. He could see that the bandage was bleeding through and decided to try and treat her injury. He walked back to the synthesizer and ordered a med. unit, a neat little device that worked much like one of the instruments he had seen the doctors use in Star Trek. Turning around, he tried to approach Lana. When she flinched away from him he tried to explain to her that he was trying to tend to her leg, but she wouldn't listen. Finally he gave up and asked Chloe to do it. After giving her a thirty second lesson in how to use the med. unit he turned and grabbed a chair, turning it around and straddling it. He folded his arms over the top of the chair and rested his chin on top of his arms. There he sat as Chloe tended to Lana's leg and then continued with her meal.

By the time both girls were done with their meals they were having trouble keeping their eyes open. Clark was afraid that if he didn't get them into bed soon they were going to end up face first in their meals.

Standing up, Clark walked over to the bed and threw down the comforter and the top sheet. Turning around, Clark addressed both girls in a quite voice.

"Both of you need some rest or you'll be falling all over yourselves soon. Both of you can take the bed. I'll sleep on the floor."

Chloe looked like she was about to protest, after all, no matter how tired she was she still wanted some answers, but she happened to look at Lana first and Chloe saw how tired her friend was and she felt her resistance to the idea of getting some sleep melt away. Not that she wouldn't be asking Clark plenty of questions, she was just going to ask them when her brain was functioning enough to analyze the answers. Clark had given her his last run around, and if he thought he was going to get out of this by telling her some cockamamie story then he had another think a-comin'.

Pausing to make sure that Lana got all the way into bed, Chloe then climbed into bed on the other side and fell asleep the second her head hit the pillow.

Clark wasn't so lucky. After setting an alarm to wake him a few hours before they would come for the girls, he tried to get some rest. Unfortunately for him, while his body wanted to rest, his mind was completely awake and wouldn't let him rest. It kept bouncing around, never settling anything, just jumping from thought to thought every few minutes. After a few hours his mind finally shut down and allowed him to sleep. His final thought was of how much he hoped Chloe would understand the truth about him and why he had had to lie to her so often.

TBC


	8. Chapter 8

I hope you guys appreciate this next part because I had to totally redo it three times before I came up with this and, believe you me, this is a LONG part to have to redo three times. Rant over, have fun and enjoy.

Ch. 9

Clark felt like smashing the alarm into its component atoms when it woke him up a few hours later. Not that his brain was functioning enough to form such a complex thought. His actual thought was simply a vague image of smashing it until it disappeared. He was definitely not a morning person. However, even his less than fully functional brain could remember the two girls asleep on the bed just above him, curbing his caveman tendencies quite effectively. Opening his eyes to check on the girls, Clark had a strangely good view of Chloe and Lana. Both of them were wide awake and looking at him with a mix of shock and fear. Not fully understanding their reaction he reached over and turned off the alarm. It was then that he realized why they were so frightened. The alarm was set into the wall at a height that forced a person to stand up to turn it off, thereby insuring that that person was fully awake. However, Clark had simply reached over and turned it off without standing up. Looking down at the floor, Clark confirmed his hypothesis. He was floating a good three feet off of the ground. Apparently the hardness of the floor had sent his body in search of more comfortable surroundings. Closing his eyes, Clark willed his body back to the floor and then stood up to face the two wide eyed women.

"Umm, opps." was all that Clark could think to say. He hadn't planned on starting this conversation by revealing his powers first thing. Especially not that one. He still thought of it as the most inhuman of his powers, even though he had come to enjoy it immensely over the last day.

"You can fly!" was the first thing that came out of Chloe's mouth.

Clark watched as Lana backed away from him as far as she could and not fall off the bed. Clark was about to try and talk her into calming down when Chloe said something that drew his attention straight back to her.

"I didn't know you could fly!"

It wasn't so much what she had said as how she had said it that drew Clark's attention. She said it as if she had known something else, something about him.

"You say that as if you know something else about me Chloe. Exactly how much do you know about me?" Clark said while staring at her.

"Umm, opps?" now it was Chloe's turn to be tongue tied.

"So all of those times you said something strange to me you it wasn't just in my head. You really did know more than I thought you did. How much have you found out Chloe?"

Chloe realized that if she stayed on the defensive any longer she was going to be in some really hot water soon, so she decided to turn his question against him.

"I don't know Clark, why don't you tell me all of it and then I can tell you what I do and don't know."

Clark's gaze on her sharpened slightly, but soon he was forced to see the humor in the situation. It would seem that while he was keeping secrets from her, she was doing the same to him.

Chloe was puzzled by but also very relived by Clark's soft chuckle. For a second there she had felt as if she was being hunted, but that feeling had passed now that Clark was laughing.

And Clark WAS laughing. In fact if he laughed any harder he might end up rolling in the ground. For some strange reason this situation had struck his funny bone just right and now he couldn't stop laughing. Maybe, in a strange way, he was a little relived. If she had been able to accept him as a meteor freak with such a small reaction that he didn't even notice, maybe she could accept him for who he really was. Maybe she wouldn't freak out like he had dreamt about in his nightmares. At that thought, Clark sobered a bit and stopped laughing.

"All right, I'll make a deal with you. I'll tell you everything, nut first you have to answer me one question. How long have you known whatever it is that you know?"

"About a month. At least, that's how long I've KNOWN you were different. There are a few things about you that never added up before that, but I dismissed them for the most part. There were a few other things that I found out about you a bit more recently, but enough of that, start explaining. And if you think you can lie to me again, know right now that I WILL find a way to hurt you if you try."

That was enough to bring back his smile for a short time, but he quickly lost it again as he searched for the right way to tell her the truth. Suddenly, a new way of telling her occurred to him that hadn't before because he hadn't known much about his own heritage before the last couple of days. This explanation wasn't going to be short, but hopefully it would allow Chloe to understand him a little better without freaking out.

"There's a lot to tell you so I'll start at the beginning. This will take a while so you'll have to be patient with me and let me explain this my own way. You also have to understand that I didn't know any of this until about four years ago and most of it I learned much more recently. All I had known until four years ago was that I was adopted and that I was … special. Could you keep those things in mind while I tell you the whole story?

After receiving a nod from Chloe he continued.

"This story beings almost ten thousand years ago. There was a star called Rao, and orbiting this star was a planet called Krypton. Living on this planet was a people called Kryptonian, who were very advanced, far beyond what any other known race had ever achieved. They had explored all of the universe and had become the unofficial police force of the universe, trying to keep order and help those who couldn't help themselves. At this point, they had been doing this for nearly twenty thousand years. Unfortunately a sudden shift in thinking began to occur after several Kryptonians were killed by seemingly random terrorist attacks. This trend in thought continued to grow as the terrorist attacks continued for several years. Kryptonians everywhere suddenly became positive that the other races were flawed and should be left alone to fight with one another until they exterminated each other.

The Kryptonian people folded inwards, and within a few generations all Kryptonians were once again living only on Krypton. This inward focus continued until most of the Kryptonian knowledge of space flight rested in only a few old archives. The Kryptonians turned their back on the universe that they had once sought to help and the universe went into a dark age.

Many of the people who had been attacking the Kryptonians hadn't realized just how much they depended on them for things like advanced medical treatments, advanced farming techniques, and faster than light space travel. They had also mediated many peace treaties between warring races, an art which many races lacked. Soon the entire universe was thrust into war and chaos from which it never fully recovered.

Only the esteemed and powerful house of El had anything at all to do with outsiders, but only very infrequently. To be given the task as a house was actually a great honor, but individually, it was treated more like a punishment. Only those who questioned the leadership of the head of the house and of the Council were sent off world. There they could see for themselves exactly how superior Kryptonians were to the rest o the races in the universe. This task however, ended up giving the house of El a unique point of view among the other houses. They ended up dominating the political landscape of Krypton for more than five thousand years.

Fast forward about ten thousand years from the beginning of the story and you arrive around eighteen years ago. The house of El had lost much of its old dominance among the houses, and had become very few in number, but it was still very much respected and almost revered in some of the lower classes. Jor-el was the head of the house of El at the time and was also a respected scientist. He discovered something horrible around this time.

Brainiac, an artificial intelligence that was tasked with maintaining both the planet Krypton and everything Kryptonian, had poisoned the well, so to speak. Not that Jor-el knew at the time who was doing it, just that it was being done. A catalyst of sorts had been introduced into the very core of Krypton, causing a chain reaction that would destroy Krypton if it wasn't stopped.

He took his findings before the other houses at the council, but after asking Brainiac to confirm Jor-el's findings, Brainiac denied the validity of Jor-el's findings. Immediately Jor-el's findings were thrown out and his theory dismissed as wild speculation. Jor-el double checked his findings and found out that he was right after all. He decided to find out why Brainiac had said otherwise and began to monitor Brainiac's activities. What he saw disturbed him enough to try and hack into Brainiac's subsystems and find out what he was up to. He succeeded, but was caught by Brainiac's security system. Fortunately, he was able to escape before the hack could be traced. Unfortunately, he hadn't had enough time to record any proof and when he tried again the next day he discovered that Brainiac had tripled his security systems, making it impossible for Jor-el to hack into his systems without Brainiac being able to trace it back to him.

Jor-el once again decided to try and convince the council that Krypton was about to be destroyed, but they would hear none of it and ordered him to remain silent less he cause a panic amongst the lower classes. They also forbid him or his wife from leaving Krypton.

Jor-el saw the small loop hole in their orders and immediately took advantage of it. As fast as he could without drawing unwanted and dangerous attention he gathered the necessary materials to create a small ship, just large enough to hold his infant son. If he couldn't save Krypton, at least he could preserve a small part of it. As Krypton's time drew to a close Jor-el grew worried. He wouldn't have enough materials to complete the ship if he continued at the current rate. So, on the final day he placed one large order, just in time to complete the ship before the planet exploded, but not soon enough to where the council would find out about it and arrest him.

However, his estimate of when Krypton was to breathe its last was slightly off. Just as he placed his son into the ship he felt the planet begin to destroy itself. Racing as fast as he could, he launched the ship, hoping that it would enter hyperspace before the planet exploded.

It did make it to hyperspace, but only just as the shockwave and debris fro the exploding planet caught up with it. In making the jump to hyperspace the ship had scooped up some of the debris from the space that surrounded it and carried this debris with it to its destination. This took almost three years.

When the ship came out of hyperspace, so did the debris. While the ship crash landed and deposited its contents safely, the debris that trailed it devastated the surrounding area. The occupant of the craft was fortunate enough to be found by a loving couple and was adopted. He was raised as a human, and was only told the circumstance of his arrival into his parents' lives when circumstances made it impossible to hide his origins anymore, when his abilities couldn't simply be explained away, and when he was old enough to understand the potential consequences of telling others about himself.

Clark finally took a break, trying to gather up the courage to complete the story.

Lana took this opportunity to speak to him for the first time since entering Clark's room the night before.

"What does this story have to so with you floating?"

"Everything. I am the child in that story. I am the son of Jor-el and I am the last son of Krypton, something my birth father is very fond of reminding me of. I am the last of my kind in the universe."

Clark said that last statement with a hitch in his voice that he dearly wished hadn't been there.

Lana, having just shown the first sign of recovering a little bit of her spirit, shrunk back into herself at this statement. Clark watched as she matched events in the story to events in what she considered to be real life. He could also see that she wished she ha never heard the truth about him, no matter how many times she had told him that no mater what she would always accept him.

Chloe however, while matching up the same events as Lana, had a very different reaction, one that puzzled Clark a little. She seemed to come alive, shaking off the effects of the past forty eight hours, her eyes moving back and forth as she analyzed the information. Her face suddenly seemed to light up with understanding as she finished analyzing Clark's story.

Chloe felt alive. Finally, after all of these years, she was beginning to understand Clark Kent for who he was and why he did some of the things he did. Even more importantly, he was finally telling her the truth. Over the last month or so Chloe had realized just how bad Clark was at lying, especially to those he cared about the most. Clark Kent had more tells than anyone she had ever met, and over the past month she had noticed most of them. She could tell without a doubt that he was finally being honest with her and this made her happier than she would ever admit. His telling the truth also made her want to ask questions, lots and lots of questions.

TBC


	9. Chapter 9

Ch. 10

"So you're telling me that you're an alien? How is that possible? I mean, you look human, sound human, and even feel human. Not that I'm doubting you about being an alien or anything, but how can you look human? The odds of two different peoples on two different planets looking exactly the same are immense."

"Chloe, this IS how Kryptonians look. I can't shape shift or anything. Why humans and Kryptonians look so similar is beyond me but I do know that the resemblance is one of the reasons that I was sent to Earth. It would allow me to blend in while I grew up." Clark said, hoping she would leave it alone. He had often wondered the same thing and had never really been given a straight answer by Jor-el on the subject, which Clark took to mean the Jor-el really didn't know why they looked alike but couldn't bring himself to say so.

"What about your abilities? I know you can do some amazing things, but I don't think I know all of them."

At this statement Clark's curiosity was once again peaked. How much had Chloe known about him and how had she found out?

"Why don't you tell me what you know and I'll fill in any blank spots afterward?" Clark asked.

After debating whether or not she really wanted to go first Chloe decided that she might as well. She would have to sooner or later.

(Remember what I said about Clark setting the lamp on fire after looking at Chloe, not at Lana? Well here's where it comes into its own)

"Well, I know that you are very strong, very fast, have incredible hearing, can see through objects, oh, by the way, please remind me to discuses that with you in greater detail later, because you have some 'splaining to do," Chloe said in her best Ricky Ricardo voice, "You can also set fires with your eyes when you … well, lets just say we'll be discussing that too." Chloe nearly split her lip she was smiling so much. It was fun to catch Clark off guard for once.

After listening to Chloe, Clark's jaw was very nearly touching the floor and he could feel his face getting very, very red. After collecting himself he tried to respond the best he could.

"I'm not sure I even want to know how you know about me setting fires when …, well never mind about that. However, you still missed a few. One, I'm virtually invulnerable. Two, as you recently glimpsed, I can fly. Three, I can freeze just about anything with my breath. Don't feel too bad about missing the last two. They're both brand new." Clark said with a bit of pride.

"Invulnerable, huh. I saw you brought low just by being around a meteor rock." Chloe said with a grin.

"How did you know about … of course. The prom. I should have known you were faking being knocked out. Well, if I'm going to tell you about that, then I had better tell you about all of the 'meteor rocks'. For one thing, their real name is Kryptonite, named after the planet they were once a part of. For another, they come in three varieties that I know of, each designated by their color, green, red, and black. Green, the most common, is my only real weakness, and is probably the only thing on earth that can kill me, other than possibly a meteor freak or two, and maybe a direct hit from a nuke. It has something to do with how the radiation it gives off affects my body. Then there is red kryptonite. It has a very different affect. It … changes me, does to me what the Nicodemous flower or the parasites in the cave wall does to humans. Fortunately for me and everyone around me, it's very rare. The third type is even rarer. In fact, I've only seen it twice before and I'm not one hundred percent sure what it does, so I try to avoid it as best as I can."

"So you're telling me that all of those time you acted really weird, even for you, and were a real jerk, you were really being affected by red meteor rock?" Chloe said.

"Yep. Oh, except for the last time. Lionel switched bodies with me, courtesy of one of the stones. That was NOT fun."

"You're telling me that Lionel Luthor kissed me while in your body? Yuck! I need some mouth wash."

"Lionel kissed you?"

"Yep, and then he said, and I quote, 'In your dreams'."

"No wonder you were so mad at me."

"Wait a second; you said that he used one of the stones to switch bodies with you? How was it able to do that?"

"Oh, um, well you see … their actually Kryptonian."

"Kryptonian?" Chloe said in a skeptical voice.

"Actually, the stones are really the sum of all knowledge gained by the Kryptonians over all of recorded history. Some how or another, those stones were actually meant for me. Unfortunately, I didn't really want them, so I never really tried to find them. This resulted in two of the stones falling into human hands. One of the stones was 'desecrated' to use Jor-el's word, which resulted in the second meteor shower. When Jor-el told me what had happened, I knew that I had to unite the stones before anything else happened. So I gathered all three stones and united them in the caves. I was then transported into Antarctica where the stones created a huge cavern made of crystal. When I went inside I met Jor-el face to face, so to speak, for the first time. He directed me into a chamber in one of the walls and then downloaded a lot of information into me, including how to use all of my abilities, even those I didn't even know about yet. After that he told me about how the two of you were kidnapped, and here I am, trying to rescue the two of you."

"Hold on, I thought that Jor-el was dead, and how did you get here, and how are you planning to rescue us exactly? Why didn't you just come in, bust a few heads, grab us, and then leave? And …"

"Hold up!" Clark interrupted, "one question at a time. First, Jor-el is dead. Sort of. What lives on is his 'will and memories'. Don't ask me how it's possible, because I don't know. I haven't gotten that far yet. As to how I got here, well, I flew." Clark made a hand gesture of him flying.

"What do you mean, you flew? You flew in a space ship or you…" Chloe was at a loss for words to describe what she was thinking.

"I … flew." Clark said, again making the hand gesture of him flying. "That's part of why I didn't 'Come in and bust a few heads' as you put it. I maybe able to withstand the vacuum of space, but you wouldn't. The other reason was the Ish-nith, the people who own this ship." Seeing Chloe's puzzled look Clark tried to elaborate, "You know, the ones that look kind of like rats."

Seeing the look of comprehension that Chloe gave him, he decided to continue with his explanation.

"Anyway, the Ish-nith have a policy of killing all prisoners and slaves in the event of an attack or rescue attempt. While I may be very fast, this ship is HUGE, and by the time I took out its defenses, having to be careful the whole time not to cause too much damage just in case you were near one of its defenses, and then found you, they probably would have had enough time to kill you unless I was really lucky and stumbled onto you right away. Then there was the problem of getting the two of you off of the ship and back to Earth in one piece and that was even trickier than finding you alive in the first place. So Jor-el came up with an alternative. I was to sneak on board and then win the tournament, at which time the two of you would be given to me as slaves and we could go home. To accomplish this I had to get on the good side of The Owner, the Ish-nith who owns this ship. Jor-el figured that if I could convince him that I was a bored aristocratic Kryptonian looking for some fun when he would be much less likely to see the holes in my story. Jor-el fed me enough information telepathically so that I could seem as if I had spent my entire life on Krypton. That's why I acted the way I did earlier. Sorry about that, but it was necessary."

"I guess its O.K., but you are going to have some major kissing up to do when we get back home." Chloe snarked.

"Oh, and saving your life, AGAIN, won't count?"

"Well, maybe." Chloe said with a smile. Suddenly another thought came to her. "Hold on, you said that Jor-el communicated telepathically with you? How?" Chloe asked, half wondering if Clark had conveniently forgotten to mention that he could read minds. Boy would THAT be embarrassing. Some of the day dreams she had had in his presence at the torch about one day being Mrs. Clark Kent …

She blushed at the thought that Clark might have known what she was dreaming about. If he could read minds, he wouldn't have to worry about rescuing them any more, because somehow she would kill him. Somehow. No jury with a female on it would ever convict her. Chloe's thought process skid to a halt as Clark removed the top half of his outfit. She winced at what she saw. Running across his chest, directly beneath where the symbol had been on his shirt, was the same symbol, this time etched into his flesh instead of into cloth.

Clark explained as best he could, "By … allowing Jor-el to give me this mark I also allowed him to communicate with me telepathically. It was the only way I could rescue you."

"Did it hurt?"

"Yes," Clark said, remembering exactly how much it had hurt, "but that doesn't matter now. What does matter is me winning that tournament and then getting us all home."

TBC


	10. Chapter 10

After Clark put his shirt back on he ran his hand through his hair. Chloe caught him doing it and correctly interpreted this as a nervous gesture. She wasn't sure what he was nervous about, but she decided to try and take his mind off of whatever was bothering him. She immediately thought of a way to both distract him and answer a few questions of her own.

"How many people know about you?" Chloe asked.

Clark stood still for a moment and then closed his eyes as a small smile appeared on his face. 'Oh, boy, I'm in trouble now.' He thought to himself.

"Well, that depends on what you mean. Do you mean how many people know I'm different or how many people know I'm an alien, because this could take all night if I have to list all of the people who think that I'm different."

"That many huh?"

"Well, most of the people who know that I'm different are people who were infected by the meteors. It's kind of hard to stop some of them without showing something. Fortunately for me, their all locked away where no one will believe them even if they try to tell someone about me. Of course, they all think that I'm one of them, so it's not too big a threat. There are one or two others people who know who aren't locked up or dead, but I'm on pretty good terms with most of them so it's not a big deal. Now, one the other hand, there are only a few who have ever known that I'm actually an alien, and many of them are dead. Kyla found out when the cave collapsed on us and I saved her. She quickly figured out that I'm actually Numan. Her grandfather also figured it out soon thereafter. She died and he won't say anything because he believes the legend about Numan being a hero to their people. I'm still a little uncomfortable about him thinking that. Then there was a reporter named Nixon. He found out about me somehow, but I'm still not sure what turned him on to me. However, I can tell you how he confirmed that I was different. Do you remember how you had to come and pick me up for the dance because, how did I put it, my transportation had gone up in flames?"

Chloe nodded, remembering that very well. For a split second her eyes misted at the thought of how happy she had been at the time. Fortunately Clark didn't notice because he was busy trying to tell he what had really happened that day.

"Well, I meant that a lot more literally than you thought. It did go up in flames and with me in it. I found out much later that the truck had been rigged with a remote control bomb that caused it to explode. When Nixon saw me get into the car he activated the bomb, trying to determine how tough I really was. Fortunately all that I suffered was a few ruined clothes and a room that smelled like smoke for the next couple of weeks. Nixon taped the whole thing and snuck down into the storm cellar during the dance, which is where we kept the ship. He was busy filming the ship when my dad walked in and tried to take the film away. He ended up chasing Nixon out into the storm. Then when they were rescued Nixon tried to kill my dad but Lex killed Nixon before he could do it. Then there's Dr. Swann. He intercepted a transmission from my home planet on the day of the meteor shower and decrypted it. When you put the picture of my barn wall in the Torch he came across it and contacted me. I went to see him and he told me a little about who I was and what happened to my parents. He didn't know much, just that the planet had been destroyed, but it was more than I knew at the time. Over the last couple of years I stayed in contact with him until his death recently. His assistant also knew, but she disappeared a while back. I'm pretty certain that she is dead. Off hand I can't think of anyone else who knew except, of course, my parents. Oh, I almost forgot. Pete knows." Clark said that last part with a grin, fully expecting the coming outburst.

"WHAT! You told Pete and you didn't tell me? He didn't tell me either! I'm going to kill him! And you! How could you tell Pete and not tell me?" She voice broke as she said the last stament. Suddenly Clark realized that she wasn't mad any more, she was hurt. This wiped the smile off of his face very quickly. He hurried to explain.

"No, I didn't tell Pete. He found out. There is a massive difference between the two. I've never really flat out told anyone. Pete found my ship. It had activated during the tornado and took off out of the cellar and we couldn't find it, but Pete did. He was going to prove to the whole world that there really were aliens. He even talked about a movie deal." Clark smiled at the memory. "Anyway, I had to stop him from doing that because if he did, sooner of later someone would figure it all out and come after me or my family. So, I stopped him. Literally. He was going about thirty miles an hour in his car when out of nowhere I appeared in front of his car and stopped it dead just by pushing against it. He took it pretty well, all things considered. Oh, it got a little hairy for a while because he thought that I didn't trust him, but once he found out the hard way that I was just tying to protect him and that it had nothing to do with trust or the lack thereof, he was O.K. with it. It apparently took some getting used to though. I remember the first time he and I played basket ball after he found out. His almost exact words were, "So does this mean you've been holding back on the court? Well let's see what you've got. Now you know that there is no way your going to get past me no matter what powers you've got." You should have seen the look on his face when I jumped thirty feet into the air straight over him and dunked the ball, sending it back to him after it hit the ground. You would have died from laughing so hard. But he was pretty cool about it from then on. He even helped to cover for me a few times. Oh, and just so you know, we did tell you once. Do you remember the time that you had the parasite in you that made you do wild things? Or, more to the point, you don't remember. We told you then, when all there of use were infected, me with red k and the two of you with those parasites. You took it very, very well. I think your exact words were 'this is so cool.'" Clark said grinning from ear to ear.

"You know, I'm not sure I really want to know what happened." Chloe said, having recovered from the pain that came from believing that Clark had trusted Pete more than her.

Which is exactly what Clark had hoped would happen when he told her the story. He hated to see her in any kind of pain, especially if he was the cause.

"You know, you might just be right. Oh, and since we've touched on the subject a couple of times, I want to tell you something that I've been dieing to tell you ever since it happened. When I left the dance, it was because I knew that Lana was almost certainly going to run into those tornados on her way back from seeing Whitney off. I left only because I knew that I could save her. I wouldn't have been able to live with myself had I stayed at the dance like I wanted to and she died when I could have prevented it. Which I did. Her car was sucked into the tornado with her in it. I climbed inside it and shielded her until it spit us out." At this, they both looked over at Lana, who was listening to their conversation, but never seemed to react to anything that was said. It was as if she had built a wall around herself and wasn't ever going to come out again. After a few seconds, Clark continued, "After I took her to the hospital I went to check on my folks to see if they were OK. When I got there I found out that my dad was missing, and you pretty much know the rest of the story. I just wanted to say that I didn't want to leave the dance, but I had to. I hope that makes you feel a bit better about what happened and I hope that it helps you to understand why I did it."

Clark and Chloe continued to talk about anything and everything that had happened over the last four years for the next two hours. Several times they both tried to include Lana in the conversation, but she wouldn't respond to Clark at all, and wouldn't talk to Chloe except to answer her questions and even then she spoke only the bare minimum necessary to get her point across. After the first hour or so they both left her alone, figuring that if she wanted to talk to them, she would.

Suddenly the comm. by the door chimed, startling all three of the room's occupants.

"Kal-el, you have one hour to be ready to fight. You must send the slaves out so that they can be prepared to watch you and the other contestants fight." Came a rough voice from the other side of the door.

Clark walked over to the comm. unit and pressed a button that allowed him to speak to the guard outside the door. He had to fight the urge to tell the guard to take a walk outside the ship, _without_ a space suit.

"Give me five minutes and I'll send them out." Clark said, hating the words he spoke even as they left his mouth.

"Five minutes, but no more. We'll have to hurry to get them ready in time as it is."

"Understood." With that Clark turned from the comm. unit to look at the girls. Both of them looked scared. It was obvious that neither of them wanted to go. Unfortunately, Clark knew that they would have to go. It was the only way. But he could at least try to reassure them before he let the guard take them.

"I know that you both don't want to go, but you are going to have to. It won't be as bad as last time because you have to look presentable for the cameras that will be broadcasting live from the arena when they give you to the winner. Just do as they say as fast as you can and they shouldn't harm you, as the guards should have orders not to harm you unless absolutely necessary this close to the tournament. As soon as I've won, they'll give you both to me and we'll find a way off of this ship and we'll go home. Hopefully, a few hours from now we'll be back together and on our way home. You're just going to have to hang in there until then.

Chloe stepped forward and hugged Clark. Hard. She was just as scared as Lana was, but she was also knew that Clark was right. They didn't have much of a choice in the matter. They would just have to grit their teeth and bear with it, all the while hoping that Clark knew what he was doing and won the tournament. But she wanted one thing before they left and it wasn't just to give Clark a reassuring hug.

Moving back a little, she looked up at the man whom she had loved for a large portion of her life. She saw him as a man, even now, knowing all of his secrets and foibles. She wanted one kiss to remember him by, just in case none of this worked out. She had kissed him before, but not for real, not and remembered it. She wanted to be able to remember at least one real kiss, so she stood on her toes and kissed him with all of her might, pouring out all of her love for him into that one kiss, all the while greedily storing up the memory.

Breaking the kiss, she stepped back and announced that they were ready.

Clark shook his head, clearing it from the daze that had taken over him after the kiss that Chloe had just given him. He moved to the door and opened it, allowing Chloe to grab Lana and help her out the door. After he closed the door his eyes teared up for one brief moment before he set aside the thought of never seeing them again. This was no longer the time for sentiment. This was the time to harden himself for what was about to come. He was about to be in the fight of his life, and he had better prepare for it.

TBC


	11. Chapter 11

Clark got prepared quickly, wanting to get to the arena a little ahead of time, hoping to be able to look over the competition. Clark arrived at the arena about half an hour ahead of schedule. The first thing he did was scan the crowd for signs of the girls even though he knew they probably wouldn't arrive for about half an hour. When he didn't see them his heart constricted for a brief moment before he shook it off. Now wasn't the time to worry about the girls. He knew that they were probably all right.

Clark moved through the crowd and looked over at the contestants that had already gathered at the 'Trough', the place where the gladiators ate, drank, and waited before being called up two at a time to fight. It was situated only a few feet from the 'pit', the oval in which the gladiators fought, providing convenient access to both elongated ends of the pit for the contestants by providing them with a large walk way leading from both ends of the trough to the individual ends of the pit. This helped to insure that the contestants didn't try to get in a few blows before the match. The pit was almost as big as the coliseum in Rome, meaning it was quite large with huge amounts of seats surrounding it. There were five contestants already gathered in the trough. Jor-el began to provide Clark with information on each of the contestant's species and all five of them gave Clark pause, each for their own reasons.

First there was an Archan, a very large bipedal being that seemed to be made of some sort of rock or mineral. According to Jor-el they were very tough, almost indestructible if they had been fed a certain type of mineral that was found on their moon. Which, telling by the small silver stands running across his reddish brown body, meant that he had. They were also deceptively fast for short periods of time, but quickly fan out of steam if they did so. It went without saying that he was also very strong.

Second was a Temerian, a species known for its extremely large girth. Basically a large mound of off white flesh, the Temerians had a trick up their sleeve. They were telekinetic, meaning they could push themselves and anything else that they wanted by using their mind.

Third was a Talitcit, something of a very overgrown mosquito with mandibles where their hands would be that could crush almost anything. They could also fly very fast, almost as fast as he could if they were in good shape. Their bite also contained a poison. It wouldn't be able to kill him if it got into his blood steam, like it would almost anyone else, but it would take a lot out of him and it would make him very slow and disorientated, allowing the Talitcit to finish him off easily. He also had a very strong exoskeleton that helped to protect him.

Fourth was a Salment, a small lizard creature that was very fast but wasn't very strong compared to the company he was keeping. He wouldn't be a great challenge if it weren't for one thing. His species had two small glands that produced massive amounts of a … well, no human language had a word for it. From what Clark could understand from Jor-el, when the two substances combined they produced a new product that when spit out could burn up almost anything. Clark knew enough to stay away from anything the creature spit.

The fifth contestant worried Clark most of all. Not because Jor-el had told him something bad about him, but because Jor-el didn't. Jor-el had no idea of who or what the fifth contestant was. This was very unusual as Kryptonians had known of every single species in this universe and this being wasn't among them. He was a total unknown. About six inches taller than Clark with grey skin, he almost could have passed for a human except for the shape of his head. It was a little too wide and his jaw was as wide as his skull. In his mouth were what looked like fangs. His black hair came down to his shoulders and was tied in strange fashion that reminded Clark of very thick dreadlocks. His eyes, however, were his most disturbing feature. They were blood red and almost seemed to glow.

Looking around as he made his way to the trough Clark saw all of the gladiators chatting together except for the mystery guest. All of the other contestants seemed to give him a wide birth. They would occasionally look at him, but when he looked back they almost immediately turned around, trying to make it look as if they weren't looking at him.

The unease Clark felt over this mystery contestant double when he noticed this and interpreted it to mean that none of the others wanted to mess with him. Clark made his way to a corner of the room and sat on a chair that he moved from a few feet away so that he could better study all of the contestants.

All of the contestants seemed to be in a jovial mood, which struck Clark as a little funny. They were about to fight each other in the arena, where almost one quarter of the matches resulted in a death, and yet they were talking as if they had all the time in the world. This puzzled Clark enough to where he tuned in to a couple of conversations until he found what he was looking for. The Temerian and the Talitcit were talking together about the arena.

"I wonder why they brought all four of us back from retirement," said the Talitcit.

"I was wondering the same thing, so I asked around. I heard a rumor that a Kryptonian was going to fight in this one."

"I heard the same rumor, but couldn't find out anything about it because I was too busy getting here. I just dismissed it after awhile. I mean, they've never fought in the games. Never. Not a one of them. But if you heard it too that means there might be something to it," said the Talitcit, who looked a little worried.

"I heard it from the announcer's assistant, you know, the one with the red hair to her waist. Anyway, I overheard her talking to her boyfriend about the upcoming match, telling him not to bet on anyone this time because she wasn't sure who would win with a Kryptonian fighting. Some women have no taste at all. I mean, can't she see that he's just using her for betting tips."

"You're getting off of the subject. I don't care about the announcer's assistant's love life. I care about an unknown fighter that could be appearing and we know next to nothing about him." said the Talitcit, flapping his wings with a combination of nervous energy and irritation.

"All right, all right, just because your race comes from a single Queen and therefore has no concept of romance doesn't mean the rest of us feel that way."

"Get on with it."

"Ok. Ok. I looked up the Kryptonians in our main computer to see what kind of fighters they would be. There isn't much there, and what was there was very sketchy, but from what I could tell they aren't very strong, or fast, or much of anything. I don't know why they are letting him fight unless they know something that I don't."

"What do they look like?" said the Talitcit, wanting to be able to identify the Kryptonian when he saw him.

"Well, they kind of look like the new guy in the corner, but so many species look similar to that, and I have a hard time telling one of the other based on looks alone. I need to be able to sense their mental aura and pictures don't convey mental auras."

"Do you think he could be the Kryptonian?"

"Maybe, but with all of the new blood they keep introducing these days I have a hard time keeping up. He could be any one of fifteen or twenty new contestants."

"Speaking of which, here come the hordes." said the Talitcit, fluttering above the Temerian to get a better look.

"Why is it that almost every newbie comes just before we get started but all of the veterans like you and me come here early?"

"Over confidence. Watching the matches from the sidelines makes it seem easy so when they first come they feel like they can take everyone on easily. It usually takes only one real fight to take that out of them, at least, if they survive," said the Talitcit.

"You're probably right. I wouldn't even have come, but they offered me five times my normal wages to come out of retirement and fight in this one."

"They offered me six," said the Talitcit with what Clark assumed to be a smile.

"Figures. Anyway, it looks like their about to start, so good luck, just not good enough so that I have to fight you."

"Same to you. If we both survive I'll buy you a drink at the bar and we can talk about old times."

Just then a screen came down from the ceiling. On it was the first pairing of fighters and the Owner telling everyone that today was a special event and to give the fans a good show. The four veterans chuckled at this, knowing it to be a joke. No one with any sense at all would be worried about putting on a good show when their lives could be hanging in the balance. Most of the newer contestants didn't get the joke and actually though he was serious and were determined to put on the best show they could. The veterans didn't correct them, knowing it would make their jobs much easier if their opponents were more worried about the crowds than their opponents.

Clark was smart enough to realize the joke for what it was. He was both relived that he wouldn't be up first and hoping that he could see at least some of the fighters in action before he was called up so that he could get a better idea of what to expect.

He watched the first four fights, but they were nothing special. They were all fought between new contestants and none of them were a threat to him. Clark realized that this would take a large part of the day and relaxed a little. Grabbing some food he looked up at the crowd, searching for Chloe and Lana. He spotted them quickly and felt much better when he did. They both looked much better than they had last night. They were sitting three rows below the owner in a small section that appeared to be all their own, apparently specially set so that everyone could see them and so that they could watch the fights. Neither of them were particularly entertained but they still watched the fights with interest, seeing as they would belong to the person who won them. Both girls looked a little sick as they watched the fifth match end with one of the contestants being beheaded.

Clark continued to split his time between watching the fights and watching the girls to make sure that they were all right. On the eighth fight the Temerian fought a new comer. It surprised Clark how fast the fight was over. The Temerian threw the newcomer against the shield that came down when the fight began to protect the crowd. The shield acted like a spring board and sent the newcomer flying back the way he came. The Temerian then used his telekinesis to pick up a section of stone, around five feet cubed, which was lying around on the ground as an obstacle to make the fight more interesting. He held it in front of the flying newcomer and watched as he rammed into it. The newcomer was out cold. It had taken all of twenty seconds from when the bell rang. Clark started paying a bit more attention. Over the next seven fights he discovered that there were basically two kinds of fighters here. One kind who were very good at fighting and seemed to do it on a contractual basis, and another who seemed to be in it more for the fans than for the fighting and just walked in like he did. Clark quickly learned to distinguish between the two.

When the sixteenth match was displayed Clark was worried by the fact that he was paired with a veteran of the arena. He was up against the Archan, the species that looked like they were made of stone. Clark exited the trough out of one door and the Arcan walked out the other. They both made their way around the pit to their separate entrances. As they waited for the shield to drop they surveyed each other. Suddenly the shield dropped and the announcer came on and gave a quick bio. on both of them. When he finished both of the contestants heard the bell ring and walked towards the middle of the pit. Nearing each other they slowed down, trying to find a good opening. Clark was about to make the first move when …

TBC


	12. Chapter 12

Clark was about to make the first move when he noticed the silver threads running over his opponents body start to shimmer. Jor-el, monitoring the fight closely, also noticed this.

"Look out! He's going into…" Jor-el searched desperately for a word that his son might understand, "overdrive!"

For a second this puzzled Clark, until he remembered what Jor-el had told him earlier about the Archan. He had the ability to move very quickly for a short time, but it also left him vulnerable and weak for a short time afterwards. Clark immediately knew what he should do.

The Archan leaped forward and took a swing at Clark. It happened so fast and Clark was so distracted figuring out a plan that the Archan landed the blow into the center of his chest. It sent Clark across the arena and slammed him into the shield, which then sent him straight back. It happened so fast and hurt so much that Clark forgot his newest ability and ended up slamming into the ground without even trying to slow himself down using his flying abilities.

Clark lay there, stunned. He had never been hit that hard in his life. He could take on a ten ton bus without a scratch but being hit by this guy was like nothing he had ever encountered before. There were simply no words for how hard he had just been hit. Opening his eyes, Clark saw the Archan charging towards him to finish the job. Putting the pain he felt aside for a moment, he went into 'Clark time', where normally everyone around him seemed to stand still, but not this time. The Archan was still moving. In fact, he was moving almost as fast as Clark was. Almost, but not quite as fast. It gave Clark an advantage, one he knew how to use.

Clark got up and started running. Clark could run all day if he needed to, at least normally. Unfortunately, the hit that he had just received had knocked the wind out of him, and he was having a tough time getting it back. It was slowing him down and making it hard to keep ahead of the Archan that was chasing him. Soon his body was burning for oxygen that his lungs weren't taking in. His breath was coming in short gasps, and his lungs weren't allowing him to take the large breaths he needed to sustain his pace. The Archan was suddenly starting to gain on him. As he looked back he could see the smile that crossed his opponents face as he too noticed the shortening gap. Clark knew he didn't have much time left and he also knew that he couldn't fight in this condition. One more blow to his midsection and he would black out from lack of oxygen. His only choice was to keep running.

The Archan was almost upon him when the smile that had been on his face turned into a look of dismay. Suddenly it seemed as if the Archan was standing still like everyone else around him. Clark realized what had happened. He had run out of energy. Clark stopped and caught his breath. It took what seemed to him to be around ninety seconds for him to get his breath back, but in real time it was only slightly more than a single second. Clark knew that he had a limited time span to work with before the Archan would recover, so he set about doing what he had to do.

Clark hurried over to the still form of the Archan, who was now slightly bent over, as if trying to catch his breath. Clark swung his fist with all of his might, hitting him straight in the center of his chest. The Archon went flying into the shield, much as Clark had done just a few moments before, only this time, he wasn't going to have the chance to land. After the Archan bounced off of the shield he flew towards Clark. Clark sped forward, extending his arm straight out from his side, and effectively cloths lined (sp?) the incoming giant, sending him straight into the ground so hard that he bounced off of the metal floor and was lifted off of the floor nearly two feet. By the time he reached his apex, Clark had recovered from his maneuver and was well on his way to delivering his next blow.

Using the momentum from his previous maneuver, Clark ran around in a tight circle, gathering speed. As he approached his starting point he reacquired his target. Homing in on the Archan, he jumped forward onto his left leg and kicked the Archan in a move used by many a professional football player to send a ball down the field to a field goal. This had much the same effect on the Archan.

Flying off once again, the Archan bounced off the shields and came back towards Clark. Only this time, instead of being upright, the Archan came in head first, parallel to the ground, with his back to the ground. Clark immediately took advantage of this, and once again sprang forward to meet the incoming Archon before he could hit the ground. As the Archan passed by Clark at just below shoulder height Clark placed both hands over his head and drove them both as one force into the chest of the Archan. Once again the Archan slammed into the floor and once again bounced several feet into the air. Clark decided to get in one last blow before slowing down to see the results. Bending his knees slightly to allow him access to the Arcan's side, he back handed the Archan across where ribs would have been on a human. This sent him skipping across the length of the arena, his body coming to a stop only a few feet from the shield.

After running across the pit Clark slowed down to normal time to asses the damage he'd done. The Archan was struggling to get to its feet, but before it could it collapsed to the floor, unconscious.

Clark let go of a breath he hadn't realized he was holding. The match was over. The announcer came on and pronounced 'the Kryptonian Kal-el' to be the winner. He also announced that there would be a slow motion replay of the fight before another fight took place so that the audience could see what had happened.

As the shield came up off of the floor, disappear into the ceiling, Clark made his way back to the trough. On the way there he happened to glance up at Chloe.

Chloe was astonished. She had seen Clark move fast before, but nothing like that. Before, there had at least been a blur for her to see. This time he simply seemed to disappear altogether. The entire fight had consisted of Clark being hit very hard, both fighters disappearing, around three second of nothing, one second where the alien fighting Clark had appeared, and then two spots had bloomed on the shields for no apparent reason, and then the alien fighting Clark had come to a rest near the shield on the other side of the arena. In all, it had taken all of nine or ten seconds. She watched as Clark walked out of the pit and headed towards the room where all of the fighters came from. She saw him glance up at her for a second, but before she could react he continued walking.

Realizing that she had come to her feet during the fight, Chloe sat back down. She glanced over at Lana who had a stunned look on her face. Chloe could relate. Hearing Clark talk about his abilities and seeing them used like this were two very different things.

Chloe's attention shifted to a large screen as it was lowered in front of the audience. On the screen appeared a warning that due to the fast pace of the match the footage they were about to see was slightly grainy and would happen very quickly, but they would show still photos at the appropriate moments so that the audience could see what was happening. At first, all Chloe could see was the alien and Clark squaring off in the middle of the ring. They both seemed to be absolutely still.

Suddenly the alien seemed to blur as he raced towards Clark and hit him, sending him flying. Chloe winced as the blur that she knew to be Clark bounced off of the shield and hit the ground. She was amazed to see him get up and run after taking that kind of a hit. The screen showed a still of the alien's face smiling as he began to catch up to Clark. After another second of a blurred chase scene they showed another still of the alien's face as it slowed down to real time, capturing it's dismay perfectly. Chloe watched the rest of the fight, paying close attention to the still photos of Clark hitting the alien and of the results. Chloe was spellbound until the very end.

After the rerun ended, she slouched down in her chair. She couldn't believe how incredible Clark was. She'd seen him catch a car before, but that was nothing compared to what he'd just done. How could someone that powerful be as humble and as gentle as Clark was. She couldn't understand it. He could do anything. He could take over the whole world in a few hours. Nothing was beyond his reach, and yet he chose to be a farm boy. Oh sure, when someone he cared about was in danger he would save the day, but what he chose to be when he had the opportunity was still a normal person. Chloe could honestly say that she had never met anyone else that she thought would do the same, herself included. It was then that Chloe truly understood just how special Clark was. Not because of his abilities, anyone who played around with meteor rocks long enough would get those, it was his heart that was special. He cared about others enough to give up whatever he wanted and could acquire by force and instead chose to play on a level playing field for it.

Chloe sat in stunned silence for several minutes before she was startled out of her thoughts by the shield being lowered. It looked for all the world like a curtain made of energy being lowered over a stage. As it hit the floor of the arena its light blue color and the pink flashes that coursed through it both turned clear to give her a perfect view of the next fight.

TBC


	13. Chapter 13

Ch. 11

As Clark sat down after grabbing a bite to eat and a glass of something that tasted like strawberries when he drank it but the aftertaste was more like lemons. He found the combination to be strange but not unpleasant. As he watched the next fight he thought about Chloe. He had seen the way she had looked at him, but had turned away before she could react to seeing him look at her. He didn't want her to give anything away that might make someone suspicious of their relationship. He didn't know what they would do if they found out what he was really doing here, but he doubted it would be pleasant for him or for the girls. After all, this was a rescue attempt, and the Ish-nith killed slaves if anyone attempted a rescue.

Clark's train of thought stopped as the last fight of this round began. The eighteenth fight was between a new fighter and the mysterious alien that Clark had first seen when he arrived at the trough. Clark heard the announcer call him Kronus. The name niggled at Clark's memory but he couldn't quite place it. The fight was over very quickly. The new fighter came at Kronus with a war cry. Kronus simply stood still and let the new comer run to him. Clark blinked just as the new fighter was about to hit Kronus and the fight was over. Kronus was standing just were he was before Clark had blinked but the new comer was flat on his back with a massive hole in his chest about twice the size of Clark's fist. Apparently the rest of the audience had seen it clearly enough that the announcer didn't say that there would be a replay. Clark wondered exactly what had happened but wasn't able to do anything about it because a break was called. All of the fighters would get a small break before the second round would begin.

Clark decided to use this time to check up on the girls. What he had in mind would be a little tricky, but he was sure that he could pull it off. He grabbed a couple of pieces of food that were similar to candy bars in shape and wrapping, but were actually some kind of breaded meat. He hid them on his person, figuring that the girls were probably starving by now.

Walking out of the Trough, Clark climbed the stairs until he reached the level where the girls were being kept. It was an open aired box with doors to either side. It wasn't guarded, but the guards from three levels above, where The Owner sat, were keeping a close eye on them. Plus all entrances and exits to the coliseum had several guards, not to mention that fact that they were on a ship floating over the Earth. The guards had little reason to worry about any escape attempt. However, they were just out of earshot if Clark kept his voice at a normal tone of conversation.

"So what did you think of my victory" said Clark in an arrogant tone of voice as he approached their box. He was careful to be just loud enough for The Owner and his guards to hear.

"Pretty impressive huh?" Clark continued.

As both sets of eyes shifted to him he made a motion with his eyes towards the box above them.

Chloe immediately understood his meaning and Lana wasn't far behind. Lana immediately scrunched up into a ball and started rocking back and forth. Clark could tell somehow that she was faking it and that she had apparently gotten over the trauma of the last couple of days, more or less. Clark wondered why he wasn't happier at the prospect of Lana no longer being afraid of him. In fact, he felt kind of disappointed. Not that she wasn't afraid of him any more, but that she might want to pick up where they had left off. Not that that was likely or anything, but the very thought of it was almost repulsive to him now. He wondered when this had happened. A month ago he had thought that he was still in love with Lana but what about two weeks ago? What about one week ago? What about when the meteor shower hit? Was he still in love with her then or had he stopped long before that and had simply been acting out of habit more than true feelings? Had it taken this much to finally make him realize that he hadn't really been in love with Lana for quite a while?

He cleared his head of the troubling thoughts when he realized that Chloe had just spoken to him. He reviewed the last few moments in his head and made the best reply that he could. Apparently it was satisfactory because Chloe didn't look upset. He drew closer to them and lowered his voice so that they could talk without being overheard. However, he made sure to continue to look as arrogant as ever. His tone of voice and the words that he spoke were another matter entirely.

"How are you? They didn't hurt you did they?" Clark said in a concerned voice.

"We're fine, and no they didn't hurt us. Are you ok? I saw that hit you took during the fight on the reruns." Chloe asked, concerned.

"I'm fine now. Fast healing is another trick that I have. Although at the time it hurt a lot. I've never been hit that hard before. It was a real lesson to me to be more careful. I do not want to be hit like that ever again." Clark said, only half joking.

Chloe was vastly amused by the way Clark's voice and his expressions were total opposites of each other. He kept changing his face into all of these different reactions, acting like he was holding a completely different conversation with her. For some reason it struck her as being absolutely hilarious and it was all that she could do not to laugh.

Clark saw the amused look on Chloe's face and didn't understand what was so funny about him being hit.

"What, exactly, is so funny Chloe?" Clark said in a low voice.

"The way you can look one way and speak another at the same time is hilarious. You could give acting lessons when we get back home."

"Not likely. Do you remember what happened the last time I tried to act in a school play?"

"How could I forget? It was the first time you saved my life, although I'm still not sure that it counts since you were the one that endangered my life in the first place."

"Hey, if you'll remember, you were the one who ran over that trip wire coming after me. I may have run off after the curtain fell because I messed up my only scene of the play, but that doesn't mean it was my fault that you ran over that trip wire coming after me."

"Yes it does."

"No, it doesn't. Not that that's the point. The point is that I stink at acting."

Both of them heard something coming from Lana that sounded suspiciously like "Bull foot."

Chloe backed her up. "Clark, she's right, when you have to be, you are one of the best actors in the world. You stink at lying to your friends and family, but when it comes to protecting that secret of yours or to protecting someone you care about you can act with the best of them."

Clark quirked his head to the side for a moment as he processed this and then grinned.

"Well, maybe." He admitted sheepishly.

"Maybe! There's no maybe to it. If you couldn't act better than the best you would have been found out a long time ago. When I think of some of the lame excuses and half truths that I've bought over the years it nearly kills me. It is so obvious now that I know the truth, but you did such a good job of obscuring the truth that everyone bought your stories."

"Ok, so I'm good at obscuring the truth and even at flat out lying some times. That isn't something that I'm proud of. I hate lying to people, especially to people that I care about. You know how Lois always accuses me of brooding or sulking, well a lot of the time that I brood is spent that way is because I've had to lie to someone recently when I really didn't want to. Lying to people hurts them. Sooner or later they find out and get hurt or they never find out and get hurt even worse by their ignorance. You've had both experiences with me and I hate the fact that I've caused you so much pain over the years. In the end there were two things that kept me from telling you the truth about me. One is safety. Yours, mine, my families, and my friends. Even the person walking down the street next to me is at risk if some loon or a person like Lionel finds out about me and try to take me out. Even with all of my abilities I can't be on alert twenty four seven. I have to sleep some time. I have to be able to unwind at times or I'll go insane. There is no way that I can protect everyone all of the time. No matter what I do, people around me are always going to be in danger and those who know about me will be first in line to be hurt. I don't know if I could live with myself if you got hurt because of me."

Clark paused for a moment to clear the images of Chloe getting hurt from his mind and then continued.

"The other reason is simple and very selfish. I didn't want to risk rejection. When Pete first found out he looked at me like he'd never seen me before and we've been good friends for most of our lives. He came around, but it took some pretty incredible circumstances to get him to come around. When he first found out it was like every nightmare I've ever had came true in that one instant. It spooked me for a while and showed me exactly why my parents had always told me never to tell anyone. After a couple of months I went back to normal for the most part. Having Pete know was one of the best things that had ever happened to me. However, I also saw something else in that time. Pete had to cover for me, lie for me, even to you. It was a real burden that I'd placed on him, and after a while it became too much for him. He moved to Wichita because of me and my secret. This reinforced my resolution never to tell anyone about me. I wasn't willing to put anyone else into that position."

"What about those who wanted to be in that position, who wanted to know about you, no matter what?" Chloe asked.

"They didn't know what they were getting into. They couldn't make an informed decision about it. Everyone always assumed that I was a meteor freak, which does have some small element of danger, but nothing compared to the dangers of the truth. They all thought that they were signing on to hide a motor boat when they were actually going to have to hide an oil tanker and because of that I couldn't allow them to make that kind of a decision." Clark said, looking directly into Chloe's eyes.

"Clark, it wouldn't have mattered to me. I would have chosen to know everything, even with the risks. I've been covering for you over the last month or so, so I know what I'm talking about. I would have chosen to know about all of this, even knowing the risks and the burden. I care about you enough to want to know everything about you, no matter the risks. I want you to promise me that you won't hide things from me anymore. I need to know that you trust me, especially with the things that can potentially hurt me. I need to know what I'm facing so that I can be prepared to help you and to defend myself. Please promise me that you'll be honest with me about EVERYTHING from now on." Chloe asked softly.

Clark paused for a moment before answering.

"You don't know what you're asking of me." said Clark with an almost haunted look.

"Yes, I do. I know what it will mean and I'm willing to live with it. In fact I want to live with it. I know that it won't be easy for you to tell me things that you think might put me in harm's way, but I need you to be honest with me at all times. Will you do that?"

Clark looked pained. He fought with himself, warred with himself, both sides of him fighting for dominance. The protective side of him wanted to protect her no matter the cost, but the other side of him realized that she was right. They would never truly be able to trust one another unless they both were completely honest about everything. Finally one side won, and he determined that he would tell her everything from now on, even if it hurt to do so, but he also intended to extract a promise of his own from her.

"All right, but I will need to have the favor returned if I'm going to be totally honest with you. Can you do that? Expose everything to me?" Clark asked very seriously.

All of the sudden Chloe was waging her own war. Could she tell Clark the truth from now on? It could easily mean her heart getting stomped on again. She though about it for a while and finally came to the conclusion that she could and would be honest with him from now on.

"All right, from now on we're totally honest with one another." Chloe stated.

Clark was mildly surprised that Chloe would agree to this, but he was determined to hold up his end of their new deal.

Suddenly both of them jumped as the announcer came on and told all of the contestants to go back to the trough as the next round was about to begin. Clark looked at Chloe and decided to start their deal here and now.

"Chloe, do me a favor and keep an eye on the guy they call Kronus. I have a bad feeling about him and to be honest you're more observant than me most of the time. I'll come back later and see if you've seen anything that I haven't, ok?"

"Ok." Chloe said.

"No heroics or anything, just a simple surveillance job from where you're sitting, ok?" Clark said.

Chloe immediately agreed, eager to help Clark, even in this small way.

Clark remembered the food he had brought for them and covertly snuck them to Chloe by pretending to try and grope her. Fortunately for him he had warned her ahead of time about what he was about to do so she cleverly slid away at the last moment and reached out to catch the food as he dropped it into her lap.

"Thanks." Chloe said, touched by his thoughtfulness.

"Not a problem. I'll see you soon."

Clark turned away and headed back to the Trough at a relatively fast pace. He had taken a little longer to leave Chloe than he had meant to. He was in enough of a rush that he didn't look up at The Owner. If he had, he would have seen curiosity gleaming in The Owner's eyes at what he had just seen.

One moment Kal-el had been acting like the boastful Kryptonian he knew him to be, and the next he had been acting completely different. This aroused his curiosity enough so that he told one of his guards to discreetly inquire about what Kal-el had been talking about so earnestly with those slaves. He authorized the guard to make whatever payments or threats he needed to so that he could get the information from the audience surrounding their booth. The Owner smelled the chance for profit in the air and was smart enough to know that he should look into whatever the Kryptonian was hiding. The strange way he acted around those two slaves told him that not everything was as it seemed. He told another guard to back track the Kryptonian's movements, starting with how he got on board and then he told him to track the Kryptonian's movements all the way back to Krypton if he could.

He smiled as he thought of how the multitude of ways he could use the Kryptonian. All he needed was the right amount of leverage.

TBC


	14. Chapter 14

Clark sat down at his normal seat to watch the next three fights. On the fourth fight both of the contestants were wounded too badly to continue and both were disqualified. The next match was Clark's. He was once again fighting a veteran, this time it was the Salment. Clark was determined not to be caught flat footed this time. As he walked towards his entrance to the pit he reviewed what Jor-el had told him about the Salment. He was very fast and could spit some sort of substance that might be strong enough to kill Clark if he was hit directly by it. Clark wasn't planning on finding out the hard way if this was true or not.

As the shield came down and the match started Clark immediately went into 'Clark time'. To his astonishment the lizard looking opponent was already there waiting for him. The Salment was able to move at least as fast as he could, maybe even a little bit faster. He was fast enough to play keep away with Clark, much as Clark had done with the Archan. Clark tried his best to catch up with him, but to no avail. The little lizard was simply too fast and agile.

To make matters worse, every few seconds he would turn around in mid leap and fire off a blast of whatever it was at Clark. Clark was able to dodge them, but only barely. Dodging these things also slowed Clark down, but they eventually gave him an idea. He knew it was best to keep as many of his powers a secret for as long as possible for the element of surprise that they would give him in a fight, but didn't see much of a choice in the matter. Just as he was about to fire with his heat vision he thought of a new plan. What if he tried throwing things? Even in 'Clark time' something that is thrown can usually travel faster than whatever is throwing it. Clark looked around and spotted several obvious choices for throwing materials around him, each about the size of a baseball. Gathering a few he chucked them at the lizard one at a time.

They almost hit the lizard, but he was just fast enough to dodge them and return fire. Clark thought of a new approach and readjusted his tactics by grabbing more objects, this time making sure to gather quite a few smaller objects, most about the size of a large marble, and then threw them all at once, shotgun style, at the lizard. The Salment wasn't quite fast enough to dodge all of the projectiles and one clipped him in the leg. It didn't do a lot of damage because it was so small, but it did enough damage and inflicted enough pain to slow him down for the few seconds Clark needed to catch up to him and end the fight with one solid punch to the lizard's head.

The shield raised and Kal-el was declared the winner. Clark walked out of the pit and moved towards the Trough. When he got there he grabbed something to drink and sat down to watch the rerun of the fight. Half way through the fight Clark saw the lizard spit a thing at him that he didn't remember. It went right by him, so close that Clark couldn't tell if it had hit him or not.

Looking at his arm near where it would have hit he saw a small patch of his suit that was slightly melted. He knew that the suit was made of the most rugged material that Kryptonian's made that was flexible and light enough to be used as clothing. This scared Clark a little. He hadn't even seen the bolt coming and it had nearly hit him. If it had hit him instead of barely grazing his suit he would be dead or at least he would be in enough pain to wish that he were. Clark realized that he was so into the chase that he ignored what was happening around him. He then promised himself that he would be more observant of his surroundings in the future. He didn't want something like this to happen again. Next time it could cost him not only the fight, but also his life, and it could cost the girls their freedom. He wasn't going to have that happen because he wasn't being observant enough.

Clark's promise to himself came at a very good time for him. Up next was Kronus and another newcomer. The fight was once again short, but this time Clark kept his eyes open. This newcomer was slightly more intelligent then the last so he approached Kronus with more caution than the last fighter had. Not that it did him any good. The instant he came close enough Kronus lunged forward in a blur to hit his opponent in the middle of his chest. Clark's eyes widened at what happened next.

Kronus's fist had withdrawn with even more speed than he had used to punch his opponent with. His opponent's chest seemed to act as if Kronus's fist had entered him instead of just hitting him. A large hole formed where Kronus had hit him. It looked as if he had been shot with a massive bullet. Apparently Kronus had hit him hard and fast enough to cause his own body to tear itself apart. This was what had happened during the previous fight.

Clark was absolutely astonished at this, not only at the strength shown, but at how unnecessary and brutal the act had been. Clark could do something similar if he wished anytime he hit someone, but he never did it. He could take a relatively normal person down with much less force just as easily as he could with the kind of force that he was just shown. Kronus had done what he had done because he wanted to kill his opponent, not because he wanted to win. He could have downed his opponent just as fast but with less force, had he wanted to, but he didn't. Clark had a hard time understanding someone that bloodthirsty. Even the other fighters in the arena at least tried not to kill their opponent if they outclassed him. They might hurt him badly, but they wouldn't purposely kill someone that far below them. It was considered unsportsmanlike conduct. He knew one thing though. If Clark ever met Kronus in the arena he wouldn't pull his punches because Kronus wouldn't either.

The rest of the round Clark tried to come up with strategies to beat the winners of each fight, taking their various strengths and weaknesses into consideration as he formulated a plan of attack that would allow him to beat each of them. However, in the back of his mind he couldn't forget about Kronus and what he'd done.

Chloe had also witnessed the fight between Kronus and the newcomer. In fact she had paid special attention to this fight because of what Clark had said about watching Kronus and telling him if she noticed anything unusual about him. She had noticed something all right. Kronus was insane. He was absolutely, grade A, one hundred and ten percent, out of his mind. She had paid close attention to his eyes as he walked off of the stage and had seen the blood lust there. It nearly made her sick. She was glad she hadn't eaten the food Clark brought her and Lana or she might have thrown up. It was nearly an hour after the match that she felt like eating anything. Lana was also hungry so Chloe snuck her one of the two bars of food. Chloe showed Lana a way to eat the food without anyone being able to see it. When she tried it herself she discovered that it tasted pretty good. In fact, as soon as it hit her stomach, her stomach woke up and complained bitterly about its lack of food. She hadn't eaten anything since about half an hour before she had left Clark's room and that was nearly eight hours ago. She quickly ate the rest of the bar and let it settle in her stomach. It had taken the edge off, but it didn't fill her up. She had hoped that Clark would bring more food with him when this round was over, but there was only a ten minute break between rounds this time, and Clark hadn't been able to get to them in that time without drawing suspicion about why he wanted to be with them so badly. Besides, it would also look pretty suspicious if he were to spend every break with them.

Chloe understood what had happened and explained it to Lana, who had also been hoping for some more food. Lana had been steadily improving ever since they left Clark's room. She was almost back to normal now, although she still didn't want to talk to Chloe about Clark. This worried Chloe. She knew that Lana would never want to be with Clark now and she was also sure that Clark no longer thought himself in love with Lana, so the thing that worried Chloe was what Lana would do when they all got home. Would she run to Lex and expose Clark? Would she take it to the news papers? All the sudden Chloe didn't like her chosen profession quite as much as she had previously. She could see in her mind the flock of reporters descending onto the Kent farm and destroying their family trying to get at all of Clark's secrets. She didn't want that to happen and she was determined to stop it from ever happening. To that end she decided to plant a few seeds with Lana now that would hopefully bear fruit by the time they got back home, at least with some careful watering by Chloe Sullivan, ace reporter and best friend. Although not necessarily in that order. She was a best friend first and a reporter second.

Knowing Lana she had to start off very slowly and work her way up or Lana would get suspicious to her motives.

"You know, it was very nice of Clark to bring us those bars of food." Chloe said.

"Maybe, so?" Lana asked wondering where Chloe was going with this.

"So maybe you should think about treating him a little nicer when we get out of this and you can drop the fetal position act without raising suspicions." Chloe said.

"Why would I do that? He's been lying to me ever since I've known him. He's the one responsible for my parent's dieing in the meteor shower."

"Lana, he was a baby when he was sent off in that space ship, he didn't have a choice in the matter. Besides, he lied to me too, and I understand why he did it, even if I wish that he hadn't, at least, not for so long."

"What do you mean 'not for so long'?" Lana replied.

"Well what do you think either of us would have done if he had simply walked up to us the first time we met and said 'Hi, my name is Clark Kent and Kal-el. I have two different names because I'm an alien.' We both would have thought he was insane. Then he would have to prove it. After that, what do you think we would have done? I know I would have called the Daily Planet. You probably would have called the cops or the FBI or the CIA or something and we both would have ruined his life and possibly insured his death and his family's death. No, I am glad that he didn't tell either of us until much later. I just wish that it had been a little sooner than this. Maybe a year ago. I think I could have handled it then. What about you? When do you think you could have handled it without running to the cops?" Chloe asked, trying to get Lana into the mindset of not telling anyone about Clark.

"I don't know." Lana replied quietly. "I don't think that I could have handled it. I'm not sure that I can handle it now. I could have handled him being a meteor freak but… he's not even human."

"He's more human than a lot of humans. Being human isn't really about your genetics, that's being a homosapien. Being human is about what's in a person's heart. Even more than that, it's about what a person does. There are a lot of homosapiens that I wouldn't call human. There's also one Kryptonian that might be more human than anyone I've ever met. Clark could have chosen to rule the world but instead he chose to help those he cared about. He's saved our lives so many times that I've lost count. It's become a regular occurrence for him to save our lives and he doesn't even expect a reward. In fact, he's usually the first person to minimize whatever it is that he did. I know that that's to protect his secret, but he continues to save us even when he knows that he won't get anything from it. In fact, it could get him killed or locked away in some lab. He uses his abilities to help others when he could easily follow the route that many humans and meteor freaks have taken and used his power for selfish purposes. He's a hero, whether he wants to admit it or not. While his abilities allow him to do great things, it's his heart, his human heart, which motivates him to do those great things." Chloe ended passionately. She doubted any speech would make Lana think of Clark as human, but hopefully this was a good start towards helping her to see why she shouldn't tell anyone about Clark. For one evil moment Chloe wondered if Clark knew of a way to erase a person's memories. She dismissed the thought with a chuckle. She was just going to have to keep at it. Somehow she was going to convince Lana to keep Clark's secret just that. A secret.

TBC


	15. Chapter 15

The next round began and Clark was in the first fight. This round would have only have four fights total. Clark was once again paired with a veteran of the arena. By this time he'd detected a pattern in the setup of the fights. All of the veterans would be set up each round to fight new fighters so that they could be assured of winning. The Owner clearly wanted him to fight a veteran each round so that the audience would stay entertained. Clark made his way to the entrance thinking of what this meant for him as the rounds progressed. He would have to finish this fight with the Temerian and then he would have to fight either the Talitcit or Kronus. Whichever he didn't fight with in the next round he would have to fight in the championship round.

Focusing his mind on the fight ahead Clark entered the pit and tried to prepare. He hadn't been able to come up with an effective strategy to defeat the Temerian, at least not without revealing another power. The best way he could think of to win was to simply move too fast for the Temerian to follow.

The second the shield hit the ground he was off like a shot. Unfortunately it was too late. The Temerian had a hold on him with his telekinesis. Picking Clark up, he threw him from one side of the pit to the other, never letting him go. This wouldn't have been too hard for Clark to get out of, but the Temerian had turned him around so that Clark's back was facing him. He couldn't turn around far enough to be able to see him and use his heat vision. The longer the beating took the more Clark began to feel each encounter with the shield.

The landing itself wasn't too bad, but the repeated blows he received from hitting the shield repeatedly was beginning to get to him. Apparently there was some sort of effect that the shield had on anyone who ran into it. Nothing much happened at first, but the effect seemed to be accumulative. The more he was rammed against it the more he felt numb. He couldn't seem to get his legs and arms to work anymore. All they would do is twitch every now and then.

Finally, in a move Clark recognized from a previous fight, the Temerian threw him across the arena one last time and let go. Clark bounced off of the shield and was turned around just in time to see a massive block of stone hovering directly in his flight path. Almost directly behind it was the Temerian. Clark knew that the Temerian meant for him to crash into the stone and any efforts he made to dodge it in his weakened condition would only serve to alert the other contestants of his flying ability. Instead he chose to meet the stone head on.

He crashed into the stone, smashing it into a multitude of small fragments. The impact hurt a lot after the beating he had received from being smashed into the shield time and again. However he was able to carry through with his plan. As he cleared the debris field left by the shattering rock Clark tried to use his heat vision to stop the Temerian from grabbing him again. Unfortunately he wasn't able to use it as strongly as he would have liked because of the shields effect on him. He ended up giving the Temerian a very bad sunburn on a small portion of his body.

However, the pain and the shock of this was enough to cause the Temerian to move backwards out of instinct, putting him directly into Clark's flight path. The pain also served to crowd the Temerian's nerve pathways, limiting his ability to use his telekinesis. All he was able to do was slow Clark down a little before he slammed into the Temerian at nearly twenty miles an hour. This wouldn't have been quite so bad for the Temerian if it hadn't been for Clark's invulnerability. It was much like running head long into a thick brick wall at twenty miles an hour. The wall didn't give way, you did. The Temerian was almost instantly knocked unconscious from pain overload.

Clark wasn't doing much better. He was still conscious, but he couldn't move. The effect of the shield was still preventing him from moving in any coordinated fashion. He could feel the effect wearing off a little at a time, but he knew it would take a while.

Both Clark and the Temerian had to be carried off of the field, but since Clark was still conscious he was declared the winner. This was a relief for Clark, who didn't want to have to fight the Temerian again anytime soon. The medics set him in a chair to watch the rest of the round. All three of the fights were interesting and Clark was very glad to be able to see them. By the end of the last fight he had regained almost full use of his faculties. He was able to talk and walk well enough so that he could visit the girls during the intermission, which he was half convinced was extra long to give him time to recover so that he could put on a good fight.

He grabbed another couple of food bars in case the girls were still hungry, although he had no clue of how he was going to sneak the bars to them this time without being caught. He wasn't in good enough shape yet to try anything fancy like last time. Maybe Chloe would have an idea.

He made his way carefully to where the girls were sitting. He put on his game face, but was too tired to think of the appropriate misleading thing to say so that The Owner could overhear. Instead he simply walked up to them as arrogantly as he could manage under the circumstances.

Chloe was visibly concerned for Clark as he neared, and Clark knew that that wasn't a good thing. The Owner could notice it and start wondering. He used his eyes to connect with her and then glanced up towards The Owner.

Chloe once again got the message and immediately put on her game face.

Clark leaned up against the box where the girls were sitting, putting most of his weight on it. He figured he would start off by seeing if the girls wanted more food.

"I brought some more food. Do the two of you want it?" Clark asked in a normal tone of voice. His expression said that he was trying to proposition them.

Chloe tried to get in to the act by acting repulsed and also by acting as if she was trying to hide it.

"Sure, we're starving. Thanks for the other two bars by the way. I didn't get a chance to tell you that last time since you had to rush off."

"Not a problem, but you're going to have to earn these. I can't think of a way to get the bars to you without giving myself away. You're going to have to come up with a way to get them from me without anyone noticing." Clark said, trying to look as if Chloe had rejected his advances.

"I think I've got a way. An open bribe."

"Huh?" Clark was stumped by this. What did she mean?

"It's simple Clark. You act like your bribing me to kiss you with the food and no one will suspect anything different is going on. I doubt The Owner would care if you bribe me with a little food, and it would be perfectly in character for you. We get the food and we don't even have to hide it." She said with a smile.

For an instant Clark broke character. He looked absolutely stunned. He had been stretched enough as it was to go through with the last scheme, and he hadn't even touched her, just pretended like he was trying to. He had even warned her so that she would know what to do. If they did this, it would have to be for real. There wouldn't be any faking this close to The Owner, not of something like this. He informed Chloe of his thoughts as he reentered character.

"I know that! It's the only way that I can think of. It doesn't sound like you have anything better, so let's do it." Chloe said. In spite of the fact that she sounded professional, she was actually a little bit happy at the prospect of being able to kiss Clark again, even if it wasn't for real. Not that she'd admit it, even to herself. It was simply too embarrassing for her to even think about.

Clark almost broke character again thinking of what they were about to do. He didn't though, and held the bar's of food aloft, out of Chloe's reach.

She pretended to try and grab them and, of course, failed miserably. Clark's height was simply too much of an obstacle for her to overcome. She faked disappointment until Clark acted like he had propositioned her again. She tried to look as if she was considering his offer and then she acted like she accepted it. Moving close to him she gave him a very dramatic kiss.

Under any other circumstances, Clark would have blushed a thousand shades of red by now. Under the eyes of The Owner and his guard, however, he was able to restrain himself to where he only turned slightly pink, easily disguised as a flush from the kiss.

As the kiss broke Clark had an unusually naughty thought. He could only give Chloe the one bar and make her kiss him again for the other. He dismissed it almost the second he thought of it, but couldn't quite help the grin that the thought caused.

Chloe would have wondered at the grin that crossed Clark's face, but she was too busy trying to act greedy. She jumped up surprisingly high and grabbed the food bars from Clark's slightly lowered hands. By the time she looked at him again the smile had been reduced to where it was unnoticeable.

A sudden thought occurred to her and she latched onto it immediately. It amazed her that she hadn't thought to ask before now.

"Are you all right, I saw them have to carry you out of the arena. Are you sure you're well enough to be bringing us this food?" Chloe asked, greatly concerned. She wasn't too worried for Clark during the fight as she'd seen him take worse blows before and be fine. She had nearly lost it, however, when she had seen the medics carry him out of the arena in a stretcher. Only when the announcer had said that Kal-el would be fighting in the next round did she even come close to returning to normal. When she saw him walking towards them she had been both relived and worried about him enough that she had forgotten to act her part in their little drama.

"I'll be fine. I'm still a little off, but it should correct itself in a few minutes. I didn't get hurt too badly out there; I just got stunned by hitting the shield so many times. Apparently it has a stunning effect on anyone who rams into it repeatedly. I'll be back to normal before the next round begins."

"You're sure your all right, and not just brushing it off so that I don't worry?" Chloe asked.

"I promised you that I'd tell you the truth from now on and I will. I'll be fine."

Actually it had been hard for Clark to admit that he wasn't already fine. He didn't want her to worry about him and knew that she might if he told her the whole truth. However, he remembered his promise to be honest with her from now on and he kept his word.

Clark knew that there wasn't much time left before the next round would start so he also knew that he needed to start heading back so that he could rest up a little more before his next fight.

"I'll see both of you soon and then we'll get out of here and head home." Clark said as he started to back away. He decided to lighten the mood a bit and have a little fun.

"I can't wait to get the two of you on the farm and put both of my new slaves to work," Clark said with a huge grin, "There are just SO many chores for you to do there that I'm just SICK of. It'll be nice to have someone else do them for a while."

Clark turned around and headed off as fast as he could go, wanting to get out of earshot before Chloe recovered. By the look on her face when he looked back after he was out of talking range he had just made it. His grin lasted him all the way back into the Trough and to his seat, which he sat down in just in time to watch the first fight of the round.

As he sat down it occurred to him that he had forgotten to ask Chloe if she had noticed anything different about Kronus. He shrugged it off and made a mental note to ask her next break. It would likely be the last one he would get before facing him. There were only two fights this round, the first one between Kronus and another newcomer, and Clark and the Talitcit. If both he and Kronus won, and Clark was planning on it, they would fight together in the next round, which was the championship round.

Clark continued to try and remember where he had heard the name Kronus before as he watched the current fight take the course of the last three Kronus had taken part in with almost no deviation. The unnecessary loss of life sickened him and made him even more determined not to pull any punches when he fought Kronus. He had to be stopped, and Clark would die before he let Kronus take the girls as slaves. However, before he fought Kronus, Clark would have to face the Talitcit.

TBC

Oh, and to those who mentioned it, I'll try to go over the previouse chapters and weed out those pesky mistakes. Thanks for telling me about them.


	16. Chapter 16

During the fight between Kronus and the new fighter, no one, least of all Chloe or Lana, took notice as a cloaked figure just below them got up and walked away from his seat. He walked down to the walkway that was provided for the audience to use to enter and exit the arena and to use when they needed to use the facilities or to visit the many food vendors. He walked over one section of seats and then walked all the way to the top of the arena where a similar, if smaller, walkway existed. He then turned back the way he came and continued walking. He turned again and started back down the same flight of stairs that he started on. This would have looked very strange to anyone who watched his entire journey and the path that it had taken, but everyone was watching the fight and paid little or no attention to the hooded figure. As the man neared his place of origin he stopped a few rows above his seat.

One of the guards almost made the mistake of telling the figure to be about his business and move along when he noticed the glowing light that seemed to shine from his eyes, even under the hood. Upon realizing who the figure was the guard stepped out of the way and allowed him entrance to the booth. There the figure sat down next to a corpulent body and began talking.

"You were right," said the figure in a rumbling, craggy voice.

"Tell me."

"He cares for them very much, especially for the one with the lighter hair. I didn't understand everything that was said but I believe that he is here because of them. He is trying to rescue them and return them to his home."

"How well does he know them and how much does he value them?"

"He seems to have known them for quite some time, although I cannot be more specific than that. I can however tell you that he cares for them very deeply. He is risking his life for them after all. I could tell it in his voice. He would die for them in an instant if it were necessary. I believe that he will do whatever you ask to ensure their safety."

"You are sure about that? If you're wrong it will cost me much, and therefore, it will cost you everything."

"He will not allow them to be hurt if it is within his power to stop it. I guarantee it."

"Excellent. Now go back and report anything more that you hear to me."

The figure left the box, retracing his steps exactly until he came back to his seat. He sat down just as the next fight was beginning.

Above him was whispered one word, uttered so softly that no one heard it.

"Excellent." The Owner said with a smile that looked more like a sneer.

Ch. 12

Clark walked out onto the field knowing that he had no choice but to expose his gift of flight. His opponent, the Talitcit, would make this into an aerial battle and if he didn't follow suit he would be at a distinct disadvantage. His opponent was simply too capable to allow for that kind of a handicap.

As the shield was lowered the Talitcit began to lift off of the ground, beating his wings at such a fast rate that even Clark couldn't keep up with them. Clark once again went into 'Clark time" just as the shield hit the ground. He bent his knees and took off after the hovering Talitcit.

The Talitcit was extremely surprised at this move and was unable to compensate before Clark rammed into him as hard as he could, flinging him straight into the shield. Bouncing off of the shield, the Talitcit quickly regained its equilibrium and took off with Clark in hot pursuit.

Both of them took turns trying to attack each other. To the few in the audience who were fast enough to see the fight as anything more than a blur the fight looked much life an aerial dogfight. Both opponents twisted and turned, looped and swerved, all the while trying to damage their opponent while gaining the upper hand through positioning.

The Talitcit was a better flyer, having spent almost his entire life flying and was constantly out positioning Clark, but Clark was stronger and tougher, and he had an innate sense of how to dogfight. He also knew to keep away from the Talitcit's bite and never to allow him to clamp onto any part of him with his mandibles.

So far Clark had been fairly successful at this, although one or two times it had been just a little too close for comfort. Clark was able to lash out occasionally, and did some damage, cracking the exoskeleton of the Talitcit in several places. A few more hits and he would be able to penetrate the exoskeleton and hit the tender flesh underneath it.

Suddenly the Talitcit banked off of his pursuit and came around in a circle. Clark followed, ignoring the warning that seemed to flash in his head that this wasn't right, that it was too easy. He flew after the Talitcit not realizing the trick that was in store for him. Taking advantage of his slightly greater maneuverability, the Talitcit preformed a loop de loop just as Clark was about to land a punch.

This maneuver caught Clark off balance and allowed the Talitcit to latch onto Clark's back and side just long enough to bite him in the arm. Clark swung his other fist around and hit the mosquito looking being directly in the face, where the exoskeleton was weakest. Clark, of course, had no idea that this was the Talitcit's most vulnerable spot, he just wanted the creature off of him.

The Talitcit fell to the ground, unconscious, the exoskeleton that covered his face nearly shattered by the force of Clark's blow. Clark had reacted fast enough so that not all of the venom was able to be injected, however, enough had been injected that he felt very weak and was unable to continue to fly.

Clark hit the ground much faster than he wanted to, causing him to fall to his knees for a moment before shakily standing to his feet and slowly walking off of the field, completely ignoring the announcer as he proclaimed Kal-el to be the victor in yet another fight. The announcer continued on, unheard by Clark, announcing that there would be a long break and then the championship round would commence. In the mean time, a replay of the fight would be shown for those who were unable to follow it due to the extreme speed at which it had been fought.

Clark barely had the strength to make it back to his seat. Collapsing in it, he put his head back and tried to allow his body to filter the poison out of his system. It would take in between fifteen and thirty minutes to get enough of the poison out of his system to return him to normal. It would have taken hours for him to recover had he taken the full dose of venom. He hoped that the intermission would be at least that long or he was going to be in major trouble when it came to fighting Kronus.

After about six or seven minutes several beefy looking guards entered the Trough and told him that The Owner was expecting him.

Clark opened his eyes and replied that he would be unable to go with them due to wounds suffered in the last fight. He informed them that he needed to rest and recover before the next fight or he wouldn't perform well.

The guards wouldn't take no for an answer. When Clark continued to refuse, two of them grabbed his shoulders and 'escorted' him to where The Owner was, stating that he 'wanted to come with them'. Clark was too tired to put up any real resistance and allowed them to help him walk, even though he was healed enough by now that he could at least walk. If they wanted to help, who was he to argue? He decided to simply conserve his strength for the upcoming fight. He was also a little curious about what was going on.

Clark was escorted to a back room in the arena and was told that The Owner would be joining him soon. Two of the four guards left but two of them stayed and kept Clark 'company'. Clark waited for several minutes before The Owner walked in. The Owner had a very disturbing expression on his face, exacerbated by his rodent like features. Clark was suddenly very alert but decided not to show it. Instead he fell back on his alter ego and played the wounded brat.

"Why did you drag me here? I need to rest and recoup my strength before I fight Kronus in the ring and this isn't helping matters. I will need at least an hour to an hour and a half to heal. Make sure that the intermission is at least that long would you? Tell them that you're having technical difficulties or something like that if you have to." Clark said in the weakest, most demanding, and most whiny voice he could come up with.

"Oh, don't worry, the intermission will be at least that long, but not for the reason you think. You see, I know what you're doing here. I know that you're here for those slaves." The Owner said smugly.

TBC


	17. Chapter 17

Clark knew that he was busted, but decided to make a play for more time to heal. His only chance to get out of this was to make everything take as much time as it possibly could.

"Of course I'm here for the slaves. Everyone fighting in the arena is here for the slaves."

"No, I mean, I know why your really here." The owner explained, just slightly exasperated by having to explain himself.

"Of course you know why I'm here, I just told you. I'm here for the slaves." Clark said in a tone that implied that this was very obvious.

The owner sighed at this, obviously exasperated. "No, I mean I know that you're here to take them back home."

"Of course I'll take them home with me, it's not like they would do me any good if I left them here." Clark said. By now this was almost getting to be amusing. He was tying the Ish-nith in mental knots. Obviously, The Owner was somewhat lacking in the brains department.

The Owner had the same thought about Clark. Why couldn't this stupid Kryptonian get what he was trying to say? He decided to try again.

"Listen to me. I know that you're actually trying to get them away from me because you care for them. I know that you're here to take them home with you because you care for them." The Owner was beginning to lose his temper by now.

Clark was actually beginning to have a little fun. It was hard to keep from smiling at all the quick comebacks he was throwing out. He almost sounded like Chloe.

"What's not to care for? I mean, have you seen the two of them? Sure I'm going to take them home …" Clark was interrupted before he could continue. In a way, he was glad. He hated talking about the girls like that, even if it was pretend and he was actually trying to save their lives. He had barely stopped from blushing after he said the second comment but he was able to force it back, knowing that it could give him away. He hated to think of how hard it would be to hold back a blush after saying some of the things he had been planning to say before he was interrupted.

"Stop it! That's not what I …" This time it was The Owner who was interrupted. A comm. unit beeped from the wall, located about seven feet in front of Clark.

"What is it now!" The Owner yelled at the comm. unit.

"Sir, we have the information that you requested."

The Owner visibly calmed down when he heard this.

"All right, I'll be right there." He said into the comm. unit. Turning around he addressed Clark. "I'll be back in a few minutes and then we'll continue this … discussion."

With that The Owner turned and walked out of the room. Clark was relived by the break. It meant a lot more time for him to heal up. He already felt slightly stronger than most humans, but it wasn't nearly enough to really try anything, at least, not yet.

The Owner walked for several minutes before coming to a room that held several people. As he walked in one of them came up to him and reported.

"I did as you asked and tried to trace his movements. He didn't come on broad in a ship. I checked and double checked every single passenger on every ship that's come on board in the last two weeks and he wasn't on any of them. When I alerted several others to try and track him from Krypton to here, they told me that there haven't been any ships seen leaving Krypton for nearly twenty years. He couldn't have come from Krypton unless they've developed some kind of new cloaking device that can fool our scanners. In that case, it's possible that he could have used the cloaking device to sneak into this ship and has it waiting somewhere."

"Well then, get to it. I want that ship found even if it takes every crew member we have."

"There is one other option. He could be an imposter. He might not even be Kryptonian. He could have snuck on board some how and then fooled the spectral scanner into thinking that he was Kryptonian."

"He has to be Kryptonian. I won't allow any other outcome. Too much money rests on him being a Kryptonian. He MUST be Kryptonian. Find his ship and find it soon," The owner roared as he stormed out of the room.

As The Owner walked back to the room he decided it was time to play his trump card. Then the Kryptonian would cooperate and show them his ship and its cloaking technology. He would make billions selling that technology, far more than he could ever have dreamed of by simply forcing the Kryptonian to fight in the arena. Not that he wouldn't use him that way anyway once he was done showing them how his ship worked. Waste not, want not. You could never have enough money.

The Owner made a detour to another room and ordered the two guards there to bring the slaves and follow him. Several minutes later they all arrived at the room that contained Clark. The Owner walked in and the guards and slaves followed.

Clark was feeling pretty good. According to Jor-el it had been almost twenty five minutes since he'd been bitten. Unfortunately, both Clark and Jor-el had slightly underestimated both the amount of venom Clark had received and the difficulty his body would have getting rid of it. It would likely take another twenty or twenty five minutes for Clark to be back to his old self again. Right now he would estimate himself as being around twenty percent of normal. He hoped to get to at least fifty percent before anything happened or he would be in serious trouble.

Clark looked up as The Owner walked back into the room. Crud. He was hoping for a little longer break before having to spar with him some more. Not that he didn't enjoy it a little, but he knew that sooner or later something would snap and things would get very serious, very quickly.

Clark's heart dropped to the center of his stomach when he saw the girls being forced into the room by two guards. He almost broke cover right there and then, but he remembered that he was playing incapacitated. He watched as the girls were pushed across the room to stand in a corner to the front and right of Clark. He turned his head and followed them as they were told to stand still or they would be severely punished. Clark caught Chloe's eyes and signaled her with a small nod to do what they said.

Chloe silently relayed the message to Lana while all eyes were drawn to Clark as The Owner walked up to him and began to speak.

"For the last time, I know exactly what your doing here, Kryptonian. I may not know why these two slaves are so important to you but I know that they are. You will do as I say or I will kill them."

"What do you want me to do, exactly?" Clark asked, knowing that it was time to give up the act. Now he was simply trying his best to stall for time.

"I want you to show me to your ship and de-cloak it. Then I want you to show me exactly how the cloak and any other technology in the ship that catches my fancy works! Then you will fight for me in the arena until you die. When you aren't in the arena you will kill any enemies of mine that I tell you to, and when you aren't doing that you will be my bodyguard. If you do not do these things these slaves will die slow and horrible deaths. Do you understand?" The Owner asked.

"Yes." Clark said in a grudging voice.

"And will you do as I say?"

"Yes." Clark said once again.

"Good, now take us to your ship. We will bring along the slaves. If you lie to me or disobey me, we will kill them right in front of you and force you to watch." The Owner said.

Clark felt anger surge through him at The Owner's words but repressed it knowing that it could make him do something foolish if he let it consume him. Clark stood up slowly, pretending to not be very steady on his feet yet. As two guards came to help him he waved them off. He wanted to do this by himself. The trip would go slower if he could walk by himself and pretend to have to go slowly, stumbling every now and then. Clark led them out the door, stopping to ask for directions back to the arena's entrance.

Chloe watched as Clark got up slowly and unsteadily. She immediately knew what was wrong with him. She had watched the reruns of the last fight carefully and saw the mosquito looking fighter bite him. He had fallen to the floor right after that and hadn't looked very steady on his feet when he walked to the Trough. She had been very worried at first, but figured that he would be all right when the fight wasn't immediately canceled.

Apparently she had been wrong. He looked weak and unsteady on his feet. He stumbled twice going down the hall from the room to the entrance to the arena. Chloe was now almost as worried for him as she was before. His living this long was a good sign, but even if he didn't die from the bite, The Owner might very well kill him. Chloe knew that Clark hadn't flown a ship here, so she also knew that sooner or later he would have to tell them the truth and then The Owner would probably kill him.

Clark continued to lead them around the ship, stopping once to 'catch his breath'. He tried to take them the long way to the hanger because he said that he had to retrace his steps exactly but the Owner intervened and forced him to go the short way. After a short ride on a lift they were there.

Clark looked around the large hanger and then slowly moved towards an empty section of it. Stopping, he announced that he would have to retrace his steps in the hanger to be able to tell exactly where it was. The Owner was frustrated at this, but eventually acquiesced.

Clark faked retracing his steps, trying to buy a few more seconds before he would have to go into action. He wasn't up to fighting people with exotic alien weaponry just yet. He knew that he would have to provide a distraction and then run off with the girls as fast as he could, hoping that the guards were slow in figuring out what happened. He would need all the time he could get.

TBC


	18. Chapter 18

Ch. 13

Clark maneuvered as close to the girls as he thought he could get away with and not arouse too much suspicion. He looked around searching for a good distraction. He looked almost straight up and spotted a crane hauling a load of… 'Oh, that'll work,' Clark thought as he x-rayed the round, pill shaped containers. He had to suppress a smile as he thought of the mess he was about to create.

Clark melted the cable holding the containers in place using his heat vision and watched as the containers began to fall towards the floor from a height of around seventy feet. He knew that he had to act fast so he turned around and ran as fast as he could to the girls while everyone else was looking up in shock at the containers as they fell. Clark picked up both of the girls by their waists and threw them over his shoulders, being careful not to hurt them. He almost lost his balance as he started to run with them over his shoulders, but he was able to regain his balance and ran out of the room just as the containers were about to hit the floor.

When the containers hit the floor they burst open like ripe watermelons hitting the sidewalk when dropped from a considerable height. Their pressurized contents burst out and covered everything within a hundred feet, including the guards and The Owner, all of whom had been too stunned to move. The crane operator climbed out of the cockpit to survey the mess.

The Owner sniffed with his large nose at the putrid filth that covered him from head to toe, trying to figure out what was covering him. Immediately afterwards he regretted it as his hyper sensitive nose rebelled against the smell.

Looking up at the operator he yelled, "What is this?"

Trying his best to hold in a laugh the crane operator replied, "It's all of this week's waste from the number thirteen restroom facility."

"You mean to tell me that I'm covered in …" The Owner was so furious he couldn't continue. Turning around he noticed the conspicuous absence of the Kryptonian and the slaves. He yelled for one of the guards to alert security to the escape of the slaves and the Kryptonian and to apprehend them on sight. He then turned and ordered the mess to be cleaned up immediately and to post guards at all entrances to the hanger. He also ordered that Kronus be sent to his residence as soon as possible so that he could talk to him. After that he turned and walked away, determined not only to get revenge on the Kryptonian for the humiliation that he had just suffered, but also to take as many baths as it took to get this horrible smell out of his fur.

Clark grinned from ear to ear as the sound of the containers breaking reached his ears. 'That should keep them busy for a while,' he thought as he continued to run as fast as he could. He wasn't making very good time compared to his normal self but he seemed to be a blur to the few people who saw him. Finally he stopped to rest. This wasn't as easy as he had hoped it would be.

He set the girls down in an alcove just off of the main hallway and put his hands on his knees as he tried to get his breath back.

"What's going on?" Chloe asked.

"Jail break. I was pretending to be a lot worse off than I was." Clark said in between gulps of air.

"I can tell that." Chloe said sarcastically as she observed him trying to catch his breath.

"I said I was faking the extent of my injuries, not that I was fine. That mosquito looking creature bit me and injected me with a poison that made it hard for me to even walk. I've recovered from some of it but I'll need about fifteen more minutes to be back to my old self. Until then we need to hide."

"Where?" Chloe asked.

"I'm not sure." Clark said.

Clark got a strange look on his face. Chloe spotted this and asked him about it.

"That was Jor-el talking to me. He says that the entire ship is under a sensor sweep. They will find us soon if we can't … hold on, I remember passing the sensor control room less than half a mile back. If I can take it out then that should blind them long enough for us to escape. Come on."

Clark started running, starting off slowly so that the girls could keep up. He wasn't up to carrying them again and he needed to conserve his strength so that he would be ready to fight whoever was in the sensor control room. In addition, he didn't want to leave the girls behind unprotected.

As they neared the sensor control room Clark slowed and then came to a stop. He x-rayed the room and found that there were only five people in the control room, only two of which were armed.

"Wait here. I'll be right back. If anyone tries anything just yell and I'll hear you. I shouldn't be longer than a minute."

With that Clark was gone. He ran into the room and disarmed the two guards before they had enough time to react. He then proceeded to ensure that everyone in the room was unconscious. He dragged them all out and then proceeded to destroy everything in the room that looked to be of any value. However, before he did that he used the computer to locate all of the patrols and the search pattern that they were using. He also used it to confirm a hunch that he had when he had last been in the hanger.

Setting the last of the equipment on fire Clark ran out of the room and told the girls to run. He had seen two patrols headed this way and didn't want to meet them just yet.

The group ran down the hallway and ducked into another hallway just in time to avoid one of the patrols. They continued to run for several minutes until they came to what looked like a flea market. Clark stopped running and led them into a dark corner of the large room that was being used to house the large flea market. When he was sure that they were out of sight he turned around and began to speak.

"We should be safe here for a little while. When I was in the control room I looked up the search pattern that the guards are using and found this place. It should be vacant of any patrols for about ten minutes. That should be enough time for me to heal completely. It's also enough time for me to tell you how I think we'll be getting off of this ship." Clark said in a quite voice.

Clark outlined the plan to both of the girls. Both Chloe and Lana were very unhappy with his plan.

"Couldn't we just steal one of the smaller ships that we noticed in the hanger?" Chloe said, nervous about what he was suggesting.

"No, it wouldn't work. The ships here aren't able to be stolen. They have too many security measures to bypass. It would take years, even for me. We're going to have to do this my way." Clark said.

"Are you sure that your plan will work?" Lana asked. It sounded crazy to her.

"As sure as I can be." Clark said.

"All right then, it's settled." Chloe stated for Lana's benefit. She just hoped that Clark knew what he was doing.

Clark disappeared for a second and then reappeared with three cloaks in his hand.

"We all look to conspicuous in our clothes, especially me," Clark said, referring to the white suit he was wearing. "We need to disguise ourselves until we get to the hanger."

"Why don't you just run us there?" Lana asked, not really wanting to walk all the way back to the hanger.

"We don't want to do anything that could arouse suspicion and appearing out of thin air would be highly suspicious. I don't want them to know anything before they absolutely have to."

Lana gave in reluctantly and the group set off at a leisurely pace, trying to blend in as much as possible. When they neared the hanger they joined a line of people about to enter the hanger and get on board a ship. The guards barely gave them a second glance as they walked into the hanger. As the group approached the ship and began to scrounge around in their various bags and luggage for their tickets, Clark and the girls quietly separated themselves from the main group.

They walked along the wall of the hanger, coming to a door hidden behind several large crates. Clark opened the door and stepped inside to make sure that the room was indeed empty of personnel. Clark then ushered the girls into the room and locked the door behind them. He then moved over to a large locker and wrenched its door off. He handed the contents to Chloe and then moved on to the next locker and did the same, only this time he handed the contents to Lana.

"Chloe, Lana, you both need to get these on while I take care of the ship's defenses. Stay in here and lock the door behind me. I shouldn't be too long. Don't let anyone in except me. When I return you will both need to be inside of those suits and ready to go. I'll see you soon."

Clark turned away and moved to leave when Chloe reached out and grabbed his hand, stopping him. He turned back around and looked at her questioningly.

"Be careful. I don't want anything to happen to you." Chloe said while holding on to Clark's hand.

Clark looked into her eyes and slowly lowered his head. He gently kissed Chloe on the mouth, making her eyes water when he pulled back from the kiss after several long moments. He took his free right hand and gently cupped her cheek with it. While staring into her eyes he said, "I'm coming back, and when we get home we are going to have a very long conversation, and then, if everything turns out like I'm hoping it will, we're going to go out on a date." He said the last part with a gentle smile.

"Don't I get a say in that?" Chloe asked.

"Nope." Clark responded, his smile widening a bit.

"Well then, you had better hurry. I'd hate to miss our date." Chloe said playfully with her own smile.

Clark's smile grew wide before he turned around and walked out the door.

TBC


	19. Chapter 19

Ch. 15

After he shut the door he waited until he heard the lock click into place before he left. He ran off as fast as he could. He was back to normal now and he felt like kicking a little butt before he left. He had a picture of the guard that had brought Chloe and Lana to his room foremost in his mind. He remembered the bruise that Chloe had received from him and hoped for his sake that he wasn't stationed in one of the defense stations or Clark was going to take a few extra seconds to show him exactly how he should and should not treat a lady.

Clark reached the first defense station and then knocked out everyone stationed there in under a second. He then took another second to trash every piece of equipment he could see including the turret gun that just happened to be facing towards Earth at the moment, before he moved onto the next station. The only thing he left intact was the cloaking generator.

Clark repeated this in all of the forty seven defense stations in less than five minutes. Only one station had been able to sound an alarm, and that was only because he'd been careless and hadn't seen one of the men before he hit the alarm button. Fortunately, that was the second from the last station. He was back in the hanger before anyone could arrive at the station.

On the way, Clark spotted the engine room and decided to make a small detour. He never wanted these people to come back to Earth so he destroyed the main reactor that powered the engines. This would set the ship adrift in orbit around the Earth. It wouldn't be able to be repaired and would have to be abandoned. Later, when everyone was off of it, Clark planned on coming back and flying it into the sun or something similar.

Entering the hanger he slowed down for a second to try and find the best way to get the girls out without being noticed. This was a mistake.

Kronus, whom The Owner had stationed in the hanger bay in case the Kryptonian tried to board his ship, had been looking the other way when Clark had left the hanger bay on his way to trash the defense stations. This time, he was in the middle of blinking. However, since Clark slowed down, he was able to see Clark this time.

Kronus leapt forward and rammed into Clark's back as hard as he could. Clark was sent careening into on of the ships that had landed in the hanger and put a huge dent in its fuselage when he crashed into it. Clark looked up just in time to see Kronus plunging down towards him. Clark dodged out of the way just in time and landed on the ground. Again he turned around just in time to get out of the way. Kronus slammed down into the ground, leaving a large dent where he landed. Clark knew he was in for a real fight.

Chloe was worried. She and Lana had helped each other into their space suits and were now waiting for Clark to reappear. Suddenly, Chloe heard a loud crash that she knew must have originated from the hanger. It was soon followed by another and another. Chloe knew that it must be Clark fighting someone and her worry for him blended with her natural curiosity to get the better of her. She got up from where she had been sitting and opened the door. Looking around, she found that her view of whatever was happening was blocked by the large crates just outside the door. She was about to move over to them to get a better view when Lana grabbed her arm.

"Clark said to stay here. I think we should shut the door and then wait until he comes back." Lana whispered.

"Lana, the man that I love is probably out there fighting for his life and I won't just sit here and wonder what's happening to him. Now let go of my arm."

With that, Chloe pulled her arm free and walked over to the group of crates. She peeked around the crates and witnessed one of the most incredible things she would ever witness.

The hanger had been deserted by this time except for a few stragglers who were running as fast as they could for the doors. In the middle of the hanger were two figures, one was her Clark and the other was the fighter known as Kronus. They were slugging it out, moving from one side of the hanger to another in their own battle royal. The strange thing was Chloe could see every move. It was as if both fighters had mutually agreed not to use their speed powers. Chloe watched in wonder as the battle unfolded.

Clark threw a punch with his right hand that hit Kronus in the solar plexus. Chloe could feel the shockwaves coming off of each punch, even from this distance. Kronus returned the favor, sending Clark back a few feet before he regained his balance and reentered the fight. Clark ran forward and hit Kronus in the middle of his face as hard as he could. Kronus reeled back under the blow. Clark followed up with a left hook to the jaw and another right to the solar plexus. The last blow sent Kronus tumbling back quite a ways. Kronus regained his footing and ran back into the fight, head butting Clark and then delivering his own right to the solar plexus.

The two continued to slug it out, neither of them making any real effort to block or dodge their opponent's blows. The fight seemed to never end. The moment one of them seemed to gain the upper hand the other opponent would do something that would put them back onto an even playing field. They both ended up positioning themselves to where they were almost leaning on each other as they traded blows.

The shock waves continued to grow until they hurt Chloe's ears every time they hit one another. She ended up putting on her helmet so that she could continue to watch the fight. While she grabbed her helmet and secured it she noticed Lana doing the same thing not far behind her. Apparently Lana's curiosity had gotten the better of her too and she was going to watch as well.

Even with the suits completely assembled both girls continued to feel the shock waves. They seemed to grow worse with every blow. It was as if both fighters were holding back at the beginning and were slowly raising the bar until one of them couldn't keep up.

One of the few dodged punches of the fight happened when Kronus dodged an especially powerful blow from Clark. Instead of hitting Kronus, Clark hit a ship that Kronus had backed up against. The ship, about as big as a decent sized house, flew across the hanger and ended up smashing into one of the walls, leaving the ship somewhat flattened and with a gaping hole in its side and the wall with a dent almost two acres wide.

Chloe felt the ground shake, first as the ship hit the wall and then as the ship fell back to the ground. She had known Clark was strong when he caught Alicia's car but never, not even in her wildest dreams, had she ever imagined anything near this kind of sheer power. Not even the other fights had prepared her for this. It was absolutely inconceivable. She couldn't even estimate the kind of forces he must be producing to do such incredible damage. The numbers were simply too big for her to calculate, even if the metals that the ship and wall were constructed of weren't any stronger than steel, which Chloe was sure that they were.

She sat down, awed not only by the power that he was showing right now, but by the gentleness he had shown her just a few minutes ago. How was a being that was so powerful able to be so gentle? It seemed absolutly impossible and yet Chloe _knew_ it to be fact. Turning back around she watched the fight continue to grow and unfold.

Finally, after several minutes that seemed more like hours, both of them seemed to shuck the last ounces of restraint and they both gave the fight their all. They both speeded up and entered a realm few will ever go, a realm where only the fastest and strongest could reach or even comprehend.

In the end, Clark would never remember exactly what happened there, he would only remember a few seconds here, and a vague impression there. He would never be able to explain those impressions to anyone except Bart because he simply didn't have the words to make them understand. Only Bart would ever understand, and only then because he would make a similar leap forward and live to tell about it. As far as Superman would ever know, he was the only other person accomplish it.

In the end, all Chloe and Lana would ever see is a large and brilliant white flash, lasting only a few moments. It was so bright that had they not been wearing the helmets to their suits they would have been blinded for the rest of their lives. As it was, both of them would be blinking away sun spots resulting from this moment for the next several hours.

When the white flash was gone, both fighters were laying on the ground motionless. Chloe ran over to Clark as fast as she could, unable to stay hidden any longer because of the need that filled her heart to make sure that he was all right.

Nearing Clark's motionless body she slowed down and came to a stop above him. She dropped to her knees as she took off one of her gloves and reached her hand out and touched his cheek in much the same manner as he had done to her earlier.

TBC


	20. Chapter 20

Ch. 16

Clark gasped and his eyes flew open as he was awakened by the feeling of Chloe's hand cupping his face. He kept looking first at her, and then over at Kronus to make sure that he wasn't a threat any more. After assuring himself that Kronus wouldn't be getting up again he looked at Chloe once again, checking to make sure that she was ok. A thought occurred to him about her not staying where he had told her to, but he decided to put that off. Now wasn't the time for something like that. That time would come later. Now was the time to get off of this ship before anything else happened.

Clark gently reattached Chloe's glove and stood up, pulling her up with him. He noticed Lana, or the person he assumed to be Lana as it was hard to tell from this distance with her helmet on, still standing behind the crates.

"Come on Lana, it's time to go!" Clark shouted at her while motioning for her to hurry.

"What just happened?" Chloe asked as Lana hurried over.

"I … I'm not sure … I can't … it's … I don't know. Nothing like that has ever happened to me before. I can't explain it. I don't even know what really happened. All I have are a few vague memories of something I just don't have the words to explain."

Lana reached them just as Clark finished.

"Get us out of here." Lana demanded through gritted teeth.

Clark felt a little annoyed by her demanding tone and words but knew that Lana was right, so he grabbed both of them and sped to the massive hanger doors. Clark had planned to exit the ship much as he had entered, using a departing ship to open the airlock doors but now he had to come up with a new plan because the fight with Kronus had stopped all ships from departing. Clark let go of the girls and walked over to the two giant doors and pried them open to make a space almost four feet wide. Clark watched as the energy barrier that kept the atmosphere from being vented flickered on.

Knowing that it was permeable to anything solid by experience, he grabbed both of the girls around the waist, one in each arm, and flew through the barrier and out of the hanger. Not wanting anyone to try and follow them he let both of the girls hang in the weightless expanse just outside the hanger doors and turned to face the doors once again. Reaching out he grasped both doors and wrenched them shut. Flying to the top of the doors Clark began to use his heat vision to weld the doors shut. He knew it would take them well over a day to open the doors again. Finishing, he turned and once again grabbed the girls around the waist and began the journey home.

It took a considerably longer amount of time for him to fly back to earth than it had to leave it because he had to worry about the girls being fried upon reentry if he went too fast. Clark ended up entering the atmosphere somewhere over New York City. Just before he was able to distinguish individual skyscrapers he decided it was time to have a little fun. Squeezing Chloe several times in rapid succession to get her attention, he mouthed the words 'Do you want to have some fun?'

Clark was able to make out Chloe's head nodding through the suit and smiled. This was going to be a lot of fun.

Clark continued to drop like a stone towards the New York City streets as the buildings and the ground became larger and larger. He could feel both of the girls go stiff as he continued to plunge downwards at an alarming rate. Just in time Clark swerved to miss the hard ground, coming within six feet of the pavement. He followed the street at this height, dodging between semi trucks as he navigated first one street and then another, making Chloe feel as if she was on the best rollercoaster ride ever.

Clark grinned as he heard the squeals and screams coming from both of the girls. He finally broke free of the skyscrapers as he left the city behind. Clark flew a bit higher and faster, flying towards home. His heart beat sped up as he neared his hometown. At first he had intended to go home, but worry over what Jor-el said about his parents being injured turned his flight path towards the hospital.

Clark flew low over the tree tops to avoid detection. When he neared the hospital and found a suitable landing sight just out of sight in the woods he decided to have a little more fun with the girls. As he passed over the landing site he had picked out he turned sharply and flew straight up for a couple of seconds and then turned again, first his belly and then his feet pointing towards the sky as he flew head first towards the landing site, completing most of a loop de loop.

Just as he neared the tree tops he flipped over to where his feet were pointing towards the ground and came to a quick stop, his feet floating less than half an inch off of the ground. Clark dropped the rest of the way and then set both of the girls down gently.

Lana scrambled away and jerked her helmet off.

"Clark, you scarred me half to death with that stunt and the other one you pulled back at the city! You could have killed me!" Lana yelled at him.

Clark just blinked at her as Chloe took her helmet off.

"We are SO doing that again!" Chloe yelled loudly and with a grin, speaking the second her helmet came off. "That was AWESOME! Clark, the second we get everything settled, you ARE going to take me flying again. That is DEFINATLY my favorite power."

Clark grinned at this and nodded his head in agreement. Flying was his favorite power too, and he would love to go flying with Chloe.

"By the way, why did we land near the hospital?" Chloe asked in a much quieter and more serious tone.

"Jor-el told me that my parents had been injured in the meteor shower and I want to check on them. He said that they weren't hurt too badly, but I still want to check up on them before we do anything else." Clark said with a worried look on his face.

"Then let's go and see them. However, we are going to need a change of clothes if we don't want to stand out." Chloe said as she looked over the outfit she was wearing and then at Clark's outfit and then finally looking at Lana's. None of their outfits were even close to what an earthling would normally wear.

Clark's white outfit, especially as damaged as it was after the last fight, would be like a loudspeaker announcing that something wasn't right to anyone who saw him.

Chloe's and Lana's outfits were almost as bad. Underneath their space suits both of the girl's outfits were identical, looking similar to a very modest roman toga, covered in white, light blue, and deep pink waves. They looked like a strange, albeit beautiful, form of tie die.

Clark immediately disappeared and then reappeared with a change of clothes for both of the girls. He had already changed into his normal attire of a red flannel and blue jeans.

Clark turned his back and walked off a ways to give the girls some privacy as they got dressed. They approached him when they were done and together they went to see if the Kent's were still in the hospital.

Clark walked up to the nurse's station and asked if there was a Mr. or Mrs. Kent being held at the hospital. After checking the nurse replied that there was a Mr. Kent still being held for a concussion and a broken leg but he was about to be released in an hour. Clark got the room number from the nurse and then told both Chloe and Lana to follow him as he walked to his dad's room.

Opening the door, Clark entered the room first, followed shortly by both Chloe and then Lana who stayed near the door.

"Nurse, when is the doctor going to let me out of here? I have a farm to run and a house to rebuild."

Clark watched as his dad turned around after there was no reply. He spotted his son and smiled.

"Clark, what took you so long, your mother and I have been worried sick."

Clark wasn't worried. His father was grinning as he said it and he could tell that it was his way of breaking the ice. Clark moved forward and wrapped his dad in a gentle bear hug.

"Are you ok?" Clark asked.

"Fine as a fiddle. I'll be even better as soon as they let me get out of here and I can get back to the farm. How are you? You didn't get hurt or anything during the meteor shower did you? Nothing … happened did it?" He asked, concerned about Jor-el and what he might have done to _his_ son, but also not wanting to give anything away to the two girls standing behind his son.

"I'm fine and we'll talk about the rest when you get home. I have it on good authority that you'll be released in about an hour. The nurse at the nurse's station was just starting the paper work when I left. How's mom?"

"She's fine, a little bruised and she needed a few stitches, but she's fine. They released her almost immediately while they've been holding me here for the last couple of days." He continued to mumble for a few seconds about doctors and how they thought they knew everything.

Clark was amazed that such a short amount of time had passed. It felt like another lifetime to him. He looked over at Chloe and saw a similar expression cross her face.

"Listen, dad," Clark interrupted his dad's rant on doctors just as it was taking off, "I'm going to go and check on mom and the farm and then I'll bring her back to get you and we'll take you home."

"Alright, but your mother's been staying at the Talon for the last couple of days. I hope you don't mind Lana, but the house got pretty banged up and I didn't want her staying there when what's left of the roof could drop down on her at any time."

"It's ok Mr. Kent. It's not like I was using it." She said with a sad smile.

Clark began ushering both of the girls out of the room. Just before he followed them out the door his dad called him over.

"You're sure that everything is all right, son?

Clark began to nod but stopped for a few seconds when he thought of Lana. In the end he simply said "I think so. I'll tell you everything later."

Clark walked out and caught up to the girls as they were walking down the hall. When they were outside and out of sight Clark picked them up again and ran them to the Talon.

When they got to the Talon Clark tried to open the door but it was locked. He knocked but didn't get an answer. Telling the girls to wait here Clark ran around to the side of the Talon. He jumped up to the fire escape that was located on the second story of the Talon, just outside of the apartment, and knocked on the window.

A sleepy eyed Martha looked out and spotted her son standing outside the window. She grinned from ear to ear and hurried to unlock the window.

"Clark!" she exclaimed as he climbed in the window.

Clark hugged his mother for several long moments before he broke the embrace and spoke.

"Mom, how are you?"

"I'm fine. How are you?"

"I'm fine, mom."

"I've been worried sick about you."

"Mom, both Chloe and Lana are standing outside the Talon waiting to be let in." Clark said, changing the subject.

"Oh, well, why didn't you say so earlier?" Martha said in a teasing voice.

They both went down and opened the door to Chloe and Lana who were sitting down on the curb outside the Talon. They both got up and hurried inside where they all sat down for a minute while Martha walked into the Talon's kitchen and grabbed a few Coke's and various other snack items.

When she got out of the kitchen everything was quite and stayed that way as they all ate. Not a word was spoken until ten minutes later when Clark stopped eating as he remembered that they needed to leave soon to pick up his dad.

"Mom, dad's being let out of the hospital in about half an hour or so. I told him we'd come and get him." Clark said.

"Alright, just let me grab my purse and keys and then we'll go." Martha said as she got up from the table.

After she grabbed her keys both Chloe and Clark moved to follow her out to the truck, but Lana didn't move.

"Clark, I'm going to stay here. I have a few things that I have to do." Lana said, lowering her eyes to the floor as she finished.

Clark felt that something wasn't quite right but knew that he couldn't do anything about it right now so he decided to go along with it, at least for now.

"Ok, we'll see you soon." Clark said.

After a few seconds Clark turned around and walked out the door, leaving Lana alone with her thoughts.

TBC


	21. Chapter 21

Please, please read over the next couple of posts very carefully and slowly or you will miss a LOT. Do not skip ANYTHING or you could miss something very, very important.

Ch. 17

After they visited the hospital the group went to survey the farm. After inspecting the property they found that the only meteor strike they received was the one to the house. The house would take couple of weeks to rebuild at a normal pace. Jonathon and Clark prepped the barn so that they could live there until the house was back in shape. When they were done moving some of the surviving furniture from the house into the barn, Jonathon decided that it was time to ask Clark about what had happened over the last few days. Chloe and Martha were in the kitchen trying to salvage enough cooking instruments so that they wouldn't have to go into town three times a day to eat, so Jonathon knew that they wouldn't be interrupted.

"Clark, before we go inside and help your mother and Chloe with the kitchen I want to talk with you about what happened during and after the meteor shower."

"Ok, but I'll warn you dad, it's a little extreme and I will stop if you get too excited or angry. I don't want you to have another heart attack and with all of the stress your body has been under over the last few days it's especially that you listen to the story without getting too excited."

"Clark, I'm a grown man and I can handle my own health issues, thank you very much. Now tell me what happened."

Clark told him the very short version of his trip to Antarctica and then his flight into space where he rescued the girls who had been kidnapped. He told his dad of the fights that he had won and of their escape back to Earth. It was at this point that Jonathon had to interrupt his son, no longer able to hold back his words.

"You're telling me that both Chloe and Lana know everything?" Jonathon said in a low voice that approached a whisper.

"Pretty much. There are probably a few things that I forgot to tell them, I mean, it would take days to tell them everything, but they know everything that's important."

"How'd they take it?" Jonathon asked, worried about his family and how this could affect them.

"Chloe took it very well. She actually found out about some of my powers around a month ago but never told me because she wanted me to trust her enough to tell her." Clark said with a smile.

"How did Lana take it?"

Clark's smile disappeared. "Not as well. She was almost catatonic because of all the trauma she's been through over the past couple of days. Finding out about me didn't help any. She wouldn't even speak to me at first, but she seems to be over that now. I think she'll be ok, but I don't think she'll ever feel completely comfortable around me again. I thought that it would hurt more for her to reject me, but it doesn't. I'll be sorry to lose her as a friend but that's all. This whole mess has made me realize that I haven't been in love with Lana for quite some time."

"What, exactly, made you realize that?"

"A lot of things really, but one of the big reasons was Chloe. I looked at the two of them side by side, for the first time in a long time, and I realized that I don't even like Lana all that much. She's ok as a friend, at least some of the time, but she isn't who I thought she was. I had an ideal picture of her in my head that simply didn't correspond to reality. Chloe, on the other hand, seemed to be far more than I have ever given her credit for. Chloe showed a lot of courage, compassion, and a gentleness of spirit that I had never thought that she possessed. You should have seen her looking after Lana, dad. She was like a mother bear protecting her cub. I think I may have started falling for Chloe over the past couple of weeks and never noticed it until right then. This incident forced me to analyze everything around me, including the feelings that I have towards certain people." Clark said while staring out the barn door.

Clark turned to face his father as he said what was in his heart.

"Dad, I'm in love with Chloe."

"Are you sure? This has been a pretty rough time and you may be a little mixed up." Jonathon said. He was concerned that perhaps Clark was turning towards Chloe because of the sense of rejection he had received from Lana. Jonathon knew that no relationship could be built on such a shaky foundation and still endure.

"Dad, this time it's not just about how I feel, it's also about who she is. Yes, she makes me feel good and gives me the 'warm fuzzies' you once mentioned, but that's not why I love her." Clark paused here for a moment to gather his thoughts.

"I've realized that there are two kinds of romantic love in this world, the love that you say and feel, and the love that you show though actions and knowledge of the other person. The love that you say and feel, the kind that only makes you feel those 'warm fuzzies', is all well and good, but it can be very fleeting and fickle. It does nothing, produces nothing, and endures nothing. That's the love that I had with Lana.

The other type of love is the one where, while you may indeed feel those 'warm fuzzies' at times, that's not really what the relationship is about. This love shows itself in the way you treat the other person, as if they were valuable beyond anything else in your life. It shows itself in the things you do for the other person, giving of yourself so that the person that you love can feel secure in the knowledge that you love them because you have demonstrated that love again and again. You demonstrate that kind of love not only in the short moments that seem to so often define and redefine our lives, but also in the everyday moments that can slowly but surly shape our lives.

Sometimes this shows up by doing simple things for the other person, or by the giving of unexpected and thoughtful gifts. Sometimes it's just cuddling with the other person. It can even be shown simply by talking to them about everyday events around the dinner table. I haven't truly demonstrated that kind of love to Chloe because of two reasons. One, I didn't understand it before now, and two, I foolishly let the fleeting love that I had for Lana blind me to the kind of love that I could have with Chloe.

Chloe, on the other hand, has demonstrated this kind of love to me, at least as much as I would allow her to. Yes, she has made some mistakes, but she's just a fallible as the rest of us and I won't hold those mistakes against her. She has helped me time and time again, many of those times at the cost of her own heart. She has talked with me and gotten to know me. She has given me advice when I needed it the most and she has helped me to get through the good times, the bad times, and the times in between. She has been a rock that I could depend on, a helper in my times of need, even when I lied to her and treated her badly. She has stayed with me and I intend to do the same for her from now on.

It may take a while to show her exactly how much I care for her and even more time to erase the scars that I've given her, but I will be there every step of the way until that happens and she can once again trust me with her whole heart, knowing that I would never again hurt her. When that happens, I fully intend to ask her to become my wife."

Clark finished his statement, never once flinching or looking away from his father's eyes, which had become suspiciously misty.

Jonathon put his hand on Clark's shoulder and said "I always believed that one day you would figure this out Clark. You've gone from a boy to a man over the past few days, not mentally or physically, but in your heart and soul. You would never think to say the words that you just spoke unless you meant and understood them. They are simply too foreign a concept until you truly feel and understand them. I'm more proud of you today than I have ever been in my life and I would love to have Chloe as my daughter. Although, to be strictly honest, I never thought that she would be the one that you would finally fall for, but I am very glad that you did fall for her." Jonathon said with a slight tremble in his voice from the tears of joy and pride that he was holding in.

"Thanks dad. That means everything coming from you." Clark said, in just as emotional a state as his father was.

"Come on, I want to go inside and grab your mother. We have a few things to discuss together and I think you could use a little time with Chloe to talk." Jonathon said as he slapped his son on the back

"Thanks dad." Clark said as they both turned and walked into the house.

TBC

Well, I'm pretty sure that we're nearing the end of the story. Just thought you might want to know. I really hope that you enjoyed this last update a lot because I enjoyed writing it more than any other part of this story. I felt absolutely inspired when I wrote it. Maybe it's just me being me, but I think it's my best update so far.


	22. Chapter 22

One Year Later

Clark's friendship with Lex ended when he heard how Lex had treated Chloe in the caves. Lex never apologized and maintained that he would find out what really happened in those caves. Lionel was in a coma and, according to the best doctors money could buy, he wasn't expected to recover. Lana was never quite the same after the abduction, at least, not towards Clark or the Kent's. Martha tried talking to her but with little success. Lana wouldn't talk about Clark and his abilities or about what had happened after the meteor shower. Instead she pretended that everything was the same and would leave anytime someone tried to say anything that interfered with her game of pretend. She never talked to Clark again beyond hi, how are you, and goodbye. She met a man named Alec eight months after the meteor shower and seemed to be very happy with him.

Clark had decided to attend Met U after all and ran home every weekend and Wednesday morning to help with the farm. He was majoring in journalism with Chloe and together they had shaped the Met U school paper into the best college paper in the U.S.

Clark worked evenings at several different construction jobs that paid by the job instead of by the hour. It still took him a fair about of time to complete each job because he didn't want anyone to suspect anything, but his abilities allowed him to work much faster than other workers and allowed him to take on jobs from several companies, never telling any of them about the others so as not to raise suspicion about how he could tackle so many projects. He was using the money to pay his way through college and to pay for his room and board at a boarding house about seven miles from campus.

He made time for Chloe though, and not just time spent writing and investigating stories either, although they did plenty of that together. Four times in the last year Clark had run Chloe down to Miami for the day to visit the beach. He had also taken her to Disney World as a surprise for their six month anniversary and he paid for both of them. He also spent a lot of time with her studying for exams. He helped her with math and science and she helped him with the arts, which had always been a little difficult for Clark. He also took her back to Smallville with him every other weekend so that they could visit with her father and with his parents. They also went flying together regularly.

They had just finished their finals a week ago and were free for the summer. Clark had been planning what he was about to do for nearly a year. He had been putting away money into several bank accounts for almost the entire year. One was for a down payment on a home. He had his eye on a nice home, big enough for a family and it even had a picket fence. It was just outside Metropolis and it was only a twenty five minute commute to Met U and a thirty minute commute to The Daily Planet, where both of them intended to work. Clark had already talked to Perry White, the new editor, about this and had been assured that if their writing was as good when they got out of college as it was right now, they would both be a shoe in.

Another account that he had started was a savings account that he deposited a percentage of ever pay check in, just in case something unexpected happened.

The third account was for a honeymoon for him and Chloe. He was hoping for either Hawaii or Normandy, although he was pretty sure Chloe would want Hawaii. Just in case neither of those worked, he had several other choices including Niagara Falls and Berlin, which was a city that Chloe had wanted to visit for some time.

The fourth was for a wedding. He had subtly talked to Chloe about this several times and found that both of them wanted a small wedding with only family and a few friends and that's what he had planned for.

The last account was for engagement and wedding rings. He had already bought the engagement ring, a very beautiful ring with a diamond set into a white gold ring with the inscription of 'cherished' written into the inside of the ring. He had personally and painstakingly burned, over the course of nearly two hours, three additional Kryptonian symbols into the inside of the ring. The symbols translated as 'trust', 'love', and 'truth', all of the symbols representing things that they now had between them. Clark had the ring it in his pocket right now.

Clark was sitting across from Chloe, who was nearly crying, at a very upscale restaurant, having just told her exactly, word for word, what he had said to his father in the barn a year ago today.

"Now, a year later, I believe that you trust me with your whole heart, just like I trust you, and I believe that you know that I will never hurt you, and I never will." Clarks said while looking into Chloe's eyes.

Getting down on one knee, Clark produced the ring, safely nestled in its black box, and opened it, showing it to Chloe.

"I love you Chloe, even more now than I did then. I can no longer imagine a day without you beside me. I would be blessed and very happy if you would consent to be my wife." Clark said as he took the ring out of the box and held it before her, the entire time looking straight into her eyes.

Chloe nearly squealed with happiness. She flung her arms around him, completely ignoring the ring, at least for the moment, as she said "Yes, yes, YES!"

Clark closed his hand around the ring carefully, not wanting to lose it, as he held Chloe. After she broke the embrace several minutes later Clark opened his hand and showed Chloe the ring again. Clark explained the ring and its significance, pointing out each detail.

"The word cherished is because that is what you are, cherished. I do, and will always, cherish you. The first symbol is the symbol of trust, which I do. I trust you and will continue to trust you no matter what the future brings. The second symbol is the symbol of love. I love you now, and I promise that I will love you until the day I die. The third symbol represents truth, which is what I will continue to tell you for the rest of our lives." With this Clark slid the ring carefully onto her finger.

Chloe nearly cried again at the obvious thought, consideration, and love that had gone into the ring.

They both left the restaurant quickly after this and Clark flew them to Chloe's father's house, where they stayed for about an hour, celebrating, before he flew them both to his parent's house to tell them the good news.

The Kent's were about to go to bed, as it was just after ten by the time Clark and Chloe reached the front porch. They both answered the door and were surprised to see Clark and Chloe standing outside.

"Clark, what are you two doing here this late?" Martha asked. At first she had been concerned but when she looked at them she could see how happy they were and stopped worrying.

"Mom, dad, I have something to tell you. I asked Chloe to be my wife tonight and she said yes." Clark said with a huge grin.

Martha jumped forward and hugged her son and then hugged Chloe while Jonathon was heard in the background to give out a resounding "YES!"

They continued to talk and visit for a couple of hours until they were too tired to talk anymore. The Kent's insisted that they both stay the night and head back in the morning. After a few token protests, both Clark and Chloe gave in. Martha went upstairs and prepared Clark's room for Chloe while Jonathon helped Clark prepare the couch.

Clark and Jonathon talked while setting up the couch, well, actually Jonathon talked and Clark listened, for the most part. Jonathon gave Clark advise and a few lessons that he had learned the hard way about married life, not the least of which was, "Always remember to put the toilet seat down."

Upstairs Chloe and Martha were having a similar talk, although it lasted much longer when Martha got sidetracked and began to tell Chloe several stories about Clark and the things he had done when he first came to live with them. They both had a great time and ended up talking for nearly an hour before sleep forced them to their beds.

In the morning, after they had breakfast and said their goodbyes, Clark and Chloe made a detour on the way home. This was the first time Chloe had been to the Fortress and she was a little nervous. Clark had been back several times to keep his end of the bargain and learn what he needed to know about his Kryptonian heritage. Jor-el took the news very well and told Clark that he had known from the beginning that Chloe was Kal-el's soul mate but he had known that Kal-el would be too stubborn to listen and had kept silent on the matter until now. He also told them how much Chloe reminded him of his own beloved wife, Laura. When asked, he told them the story of how Clark's mother and he had come together and had a very happy and loving marriage until the end. He then reminded Clark about the silver bracelet. Clark moved to a section of the wall and pressed inwards. The wall opened and Clark reached in for the bracelet that he had left there for safekeeping. He then placed the bracelet around Chloe's forearm in a beautiful Kryptonian ceremony that went back beyond recorded history.

After spending nearly the whole day at the Fortress, Clark and Chloe left and headed home. On the way Clark told her of the plans he had made for their wedding and their honeymoon. He had been right, she did want to go to Hawaii, just not for their honeymoon. She wanted to go to Alaska. The weather was nice up there this time of year and she had always wanted to take her honeymoon there. There was one mountain side village that was close to a small lake, that she was particularly fond of. She promised to show Clark some pictures that she had kept from various sources that showed how beautiful it all was. Not that Clark needed convincing. He was happy to have their honeymoon anywhere where they could be by themselves for awhile. By the time they finished the discussion they were already back in Metropolis. Clark decided to show her the house he had been thinking about. Chloe fell in love with it the second she saw it and Clark made a deal with the owner the next day to buy it. After taking Chloe on a tour of the house Clark flew to her dorm and dropped her off, promising that he would be back after his classes were over so that they could talk more.

TBC


	23. Chapter 23

Two Months Later

Clark was at the alter waiting for Chloe to walk down the isle. As he waited he thought over the last two months and everything that had happened since he proposed to Chloe.

They had both agreed that they wanted to have a short engagement since they knew each other so well and wanted to be able to have their honeymoon and get settled in before they went back to school. Clark had already moved the majority of both of their belongings into their new house so that when they got back all they would have to do is move in the essentials.

Everyone pitched in to prepare for the wedding.

Martha volunteered to handle all of the catering. Both Clark and Chloe thought this was a great idea when she brought it up. Everyone knew that no one could cook quite like Martha Kent. In fact, Chloe had been taking cooking lessons from her. Martha taught her how to make all of Clark's favorite meals and a few of Chloe's favorites too. Chloe had done surprisingly well and Clark thought that she almost cooked as well as his mother, not that he would ever volunteer the comparison. He wasn't that stupid. Truth be told, he was just happy that she could cook at all. Lois had told him a few months ago that Chloe cooked even worse than she did. To Clark, there was nothing more scary than that.

Both Clark and Chloe handled all of the decorating except for a few complicated pieces that Martha made herself. Made with a sheer white cloth and white flowers, they were deceptively simple, but very elegant and tasteful. The decorations were a very good complement to the small church where the ceremony was being held. The church could seat around one hundred and fifty and had classic, hand carved, mahogany pews with red cushions. The windows were a very light stained glass, letting in a lot of sunlight and giving the room an illuminated look that both Clark and Chloe loved.

Jonathon handled all of the administrative details, making sure that everything came together like clockwork. He was also in charge of the rehearsal, which went without a hitch.

Jonathon was also Clark's best man, standing by his side while Clark waited for Chloe to walk down the isle. He could tell that his son was a little nervous, but not enough to where he felt he should say something to calm him down. Clark was handling it better that he had. He had been an absolute wreck. Jonathon smiled at the memory of his own wedding. He had thrown up three times that morning and wasn't sure if he'd survive it until he saw Martha coming down the isle. After that, everything else just seemed to melt away. Jonathon nearly laughed out loud when he thought of how long he had spent in the bathroom that night, just gargling.

Clark had invited only a few people, several of his closest friends that he had made in college, and his grandfather. Of course Pete, who was currently sitting in the front row with his girlfriend, smiling away, was the first person Clark had invited. Pete had confided to Clark after Clark first met his girlfriend that he was very serious about her and was thinking about 'popping the question' in a few months if everything worked out like he hoped. Clark was very happy for him and was even happier to hear that Pete was planning on attending Met U when he graduated from the community college he was currently attending.

Chloe's list had been very similar, only a few friends and a few close relatives. Lois was there and so was the General. Her father was going to walk her down the isle in just a few minutes. He was looking even more nervous than Clark.

As the wedding march began, Chloe steeped out of the doorway and began walking down the isle with her father. She was wearing a long, flowing dress that took Clark's breath away, or at least, it did when she was wearing it.

Chloe stepped forward in time to the music. She had practiced this so much in private that she didn't have to concentrate on it, and instead she concentrated on Clark. She thought he looked very handsome in the black suit he was wearing and she smiled widely at the love for her that she could see in his eyes. She was given to Clark by her father and they both stood together before the alter and repeated their vows to each other, each committing to stand with the other in times of sickness and health, for richer or for poorer, until death parted them. They kissed in front of everyone they cared about and became man and wife, not only on paper, but in their head, heart, and soul.

The wedding lasted for another two hours as everyone ate, talked, and danced. Chloe's father nearly cried during his dance with her. He realized that she wasn't his little girl any more. Now she was Clark's wife and Gabe would miss the little girl she had been terribly, even as he would enjoy getting to know the woman that she had become.

Martha and Jonathon were dancing at the same time as Chloe and her father. Clark, who was watching from the sidelines, could see how lost his parents were in each other and in the memories of their own wedding day.

Shortly after the dancing was concluded everyone left the church and headed to the airport, where they watched as Clark and Chloe boarded the plane to Alaska and began their life together as husband and wife.

TBC

Eight Years Later

Clark came home to be greeted by his children. Kyle, the oldest at seven, was the first to the door, jumping into his fathers outstretched arms with a wide grin and a loud 'daddies home'. He was the most like Clark, dark haired, blue eyed, charming, and protective. He was so protective of his little sisters that it actually bothered them at times, especially Hope, who came barreling in as soon as she heard Kyle's yell.

Hope, the middle child at five, was definitely her mother's child. Bright, precocious, and mischievous, she took after Chloe so much that Clark had once remarked that looking at her was like looking at a miniature Chloe. He never said it again after the ruckus it caused, but he thought it often. Hope was often a handful, and she got into trouble for spying often, but he loved her more than he could ever express.

The last to arrive was Joy, the youngest child at three. Joy was a mixture of both Clark and Chloe. She had her father's hair and chin but she had her mothers eyes and nose, making for an exotic look about her, even at her young age. She was her own person, taking many of the best parts of both parents and adding a few of her own. Those parts came in loud and clear, even at such a young age. Clark knew he'd have his hands full with all of the boys that would be after her when she grew up. She was very trusting and saw the best in everyone, much like her father. He worried about that, but decided it was a good thing. He would just have to make it clear that his daughter was off limits to any boy who couldn't beat him at arm wrestling, and made this comment to Chloe often. Chloe loved hearing it because she knew that it was one of Clark's ways of showing his love and care for their daughter. Besides, she was a bit protective of their children too.

She had good reason to be. All of the children displayed his abilities to varying extents dependent on their ages, but they were very responsible with them and never used them in public. Clark had worried about this a lot in the beginning, but Chloe talked with him and they grew accustomed to making excuses for any mistakes that their children made when playing with others.

Clark played with the children for a few minutes before Chloe walked into the room, having just finished her article for the Daily Planet about Superman and his part in the Trial of the Century. Clark swept her off of her feet and gave her a very sound kiss before swinging her around once and placing her carefully back onto her feet, where she gave him another kiss before becoming serious.

"So, Lex finally lost it. At least we won't have to worry about him being President any more." Chloe said in a somber tone as she watched the children run off to play in the back yard.

"He never should have tried to nuke China. After that, no amount of public relations could prevent his impeachment. No one could deny that he was insane. When I think of the way he used to be and the way he was at the trial, I just hurt. He used to be a good friend, but something changed in him, and now … I don't even recognize him anymore." Clark said sadly.

"Lex chose to walk his father's path. There wasn't anything you could have done to prevent it. He was too far along that path when you met, and his father was too big an influence on his life, for you to turn him around in the short time the two of you were freinds, so stop blaming yourself. Even if you told him everything a couple of years into your friendship, he still would have ended up this way, but he would have dragged this family down with him."

"I know you're right, I'm just having a hard time letting go and realizing that he can't be helped. You're right. He chose his path and now he has to live with the consequences." Clark said sadly.

"What did the court decide?"

"Life behind bars with no option for parole. Ever. He's gone. We won't have to worry about him anymore. They also decided to split up Lexcorp and sell it after a thorough review of all of the black projects Lex conducted there, legitimizing it by saying that he'd nationalized it when he'd given it most of the defense and research contracts. The profits will all go to a charity that will be governed by the world community and the Justice League. The charity will give due compensation to all of the people Lex has hurt over the last nine years. Anything that's left over will go to help create more public awareness of political candidates. By the way, Pete was cleared of all charges since he helped to stop the nuclear attack and turned states evidence. Apparently Lex had been holding his family hostage until just recently, which is why he didn't come forward after the Brainiac incident."

"I wish he would have told us. We could have helped him." Chloe said, grieving for her friend and what he must have gone thorough as Lex's pawn.

"He told me after the trial that he would have, but Lex convinced him that there was no way that even Superman could rescue his family before they were killed."

"At least he's free from Lex now."

"We all are." Clark said in a strange tone that Chloe couldn't quite place. Clark smiled suddenly and said, "Come on, enough moping, it's time to celebrate. It's our anniversary. My parents should be here any minute to watch the kids and J'onn promised he wouldn't interrupt us for anything less than a full alien armada bent on invasion, so we should have the rest of the day all to ourselves." Clark said with a smile.

"Oh really? And what do you have planned for the rest of the day?"

"Oh. I thought we'd make a quick visit to Hawaii. We've never been there, even though we said we would go. Not that I'm complaining. Alaska was great and the views were spectacular. Not that we saw much of it. If I remember correctly, we rarely stepped foot outside of our room."

"And you think we'll see more of Hawaii?" Chloe asked, teasing Clark.

"Probably not, but at least the view on the way there will be better than it was from the plane" Clark said with a huge grin.

"Sounds good to me." Chloe said with a large smile of her own.

Both of them said goodbye to the kids and their grandparents, both of whom had gone directly to the back yard to spend time with their grandchildren. Clark picked up Chloe and held her closely to him as she placed both of her arms around his neck. The entire family watched as Clark took off and they both sped off into the sunset. If you listened closely with super hearing, which Kyle did, you could just make out what they said to each other as they disappeared from view.

"I love you, Chloe Kent."

"I love you too, Clark Kent. My Superman."

THE END


End file.
